She guessed he felt badly by how he bandaged
the knee, checking it daily, taking her mother’s place
in the fix-it department. She accepted his good
cheer and gentle touch as an apology.
She looked at the wound in wonder, the puss crown
with its yellow cream. How loud its rawness
announced itself each morning at the unveiling.
She thought, Should a bandage be pulled off slowly
or quickly? Which one hurts less? Neither, she learned.
It took three weeks for the scrape to heal.
It was larger and more infected than any she’d created.
When her father picked her up off her tricycle
and threw her in the driveway, it wasn’t because
she’d angered him, though that shouldn’t have mattered
but it did. She’d been the object within reach.
Years later the knee’s darker patch of skin
still stares its sad and blackened eye.
M. Nasorri Pavone’s poetry has appeared in River Styx, Sycamore Review, New Letters, The Cortland Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, GHLL, Cura, Rise Up Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Chaparral, Poemeleon, Wild Goose Review, The Citron Review and elsewhere with poems forthcoming in Packingtown Review and Rhino. She’s been anthologized in Beyond the Lyric Moment (Tebot Bach, 2014), and has been nominated for Best of the Net and twice for a Pushcart Prize.