The cicatrise of damage
Slowly softened
Worn smooth
By wind and weather
Water and tenderness maybe
Was once raw red and obvious
Now blended
Into your skin map
Your patchwork of encounters
With knife, heat and gravity

Some strange nobility
And ownership imparted
Not in your DNA
Inherited
Or chosen
But somehow valued
Like an old photograph
A Braille memory
Absentmindedly revisited
With evocative touch