I’ve no idea how this poem came about…was it a challenge to myself…was it just to catalogue all the marks on my body? Maybe both…who knows…but it is now a fait accompli.
photo by sketchfab.com
IN THE EVENT OF THE POLICE NEEDING TO IDENTIFY MY DECAPITATED BODY
I’ve been thinking…you know in that film, The Omen
When the photographer, played by David Warner,
Gets his head completely chopped off
By panes of glass that slide off the back
Of a flatbed truck with a faulty handbrake?
Well, what if that happened to me?
Of course, David Warner was fully clothed
And identification would be a simple matter,
But what if my beheaded body was found
In a state of undress, dumped in a nearby river?
I make this record of the following should there ever be
A need to facilitate a future police inquiry…
You know…just on the off chance.
My fingerprints have yet to make an impression
On the inkpad at any local constabulary…so here goes…
There is a small reddish-brown mole
That I see on a regular basis in the centre of my chest.
A tiny, perfect mound, which as far as moles go
Is the only one I’ve ever liked…on anybody…ever.
As for marks on my back, I know of only one, a scar
Halfway up my spine from a sewing machine injury
That if joined by straight lines would form
(I sense a lot of furrowed brows at this point).
My girlfriend and I were fooling around
(As the American’s call it) on my sister’s bed;
She pushed me off and I fell on to a sewing machine;
A tin-plate toy, carelessly abandoned by my sister
(Who would go on to be an accomplished seamstress).
I had to have a tetanus…possibly stitches.
My back being something I hardly get to see
I am reliably informed that there are three prominent moles
An obtuse angle of approximately 115º.
The oldest scar on my body is the circular lesion
On my left arm that was likely the result
Of a smallpox inoculation; an event that,
Like the scarring, has stayed with me throughout my life.
My first childhood memory is being dragged
Up a cold, pale green painted, metal staircase
To a clinic, where despite being protected for life
From a deadly disease, I screamed the place down.
There is a mole that indicates the place
Where my right bicep is supposed to be.
Beneath it there is a long scar that might indicate
From where it had been removed…although
A glance across the mortuary slab
At my left bicep would relieve you of that notion
(Upper body strength not being a priority
When football was all I ever wanted to do back then).
The long scar stretches for three inches
And then skips across to my lower arm
Caused by an accident in a cotton mill
Which sounds much worse than it was
(No urchin, me, scuttling beneath perilous machinery).
Just an arm snagged on some loose metal trunking
While hurling a blanket bale down the stairs
In a neglected mill building used only for storage.
The journey to the hospital was far more scary,
Despite the fact that my arm was seeping blood
Through an ineffectively-applied bandage.
The factory’s nurse being away on holiday;
Her place being taken by an old lady, long-since retired
Who was given the factory manager’s Mercedes
To take me to the hospital, despite her admission
That she hadn’t driven a car for over twenty years.
On my right index finger there is a tiny scar,
Which only appears when it’s cold,
(But being pulled from a river, it should be visible)
This was caused by closing up a penknife too quickly
After a childhood game of Splits, which was
The only thing we thought of doing with a knife back then.
Inside my left knee is a stitched-up hole
Caused through crash-landing on a stone
After a flying tackle that Chelsea’s ‘Chopper’ Harris
Would have been immensely proud of.
Yet another football injury was the one on my right shin…
A coming together of an opponent’s boot
And my leg that split my Lispro shinpad
And pushed its plastic deep into my flesh.
A large mole on the left of the groin area
Which, much like one of those old temples
In the Cambodian jungle, hasn’t been seen for years
But will no doubt be sensationally discovered
By a renowned urologist one day.
So, that is about it, I reckon,
Apart from a light mole on the left side of my throat
Which I only mention in passing
As it depends at what point the chainsaw
Makes contact with my neck.
© graylightfoot
gray lightfoot 