Scar Tissue

Years have passed since the op but even now you'll catch him,
hands pressed to his side, doughy fingers tracing  the harsh line
of the surgeon's blade. Time has healed what was once a bloody eight inch rip,
now the faint remains of pain tracking across porcelain skin.
Sometimes, he'll forget it's there at all; forget a part of him was excised
where the thing had set up camp, raising threat levels to red.
Other times, however, when the dam groans under the weight
and it seems like he's overdone it, pushing his frame too hard,
the pain, or the memory of it, returns to the inner folds of muscle and flesh,
where the past adheres to now, ushering in remembrance of another wound,
beyond the reach of words, on another side of his life.