Among my gashes I almost did not notice: The toenail grew back today, redder than before. How many turns till returning color corrects the swollen sore? I remove it. Not concentrated cuts, but a collection of scrapes. I scavenge what I can from animal forms, make the foot a wolf’s paw Still savage as man And man, whose form I bear is a body disease So I crush and mash it Smash the head into a rock and bandage it with luck will the eyes work, and skull be smooth wrap up the wet protruding parts and wait to try again till the turning turns the scar tissue taught shiny red like blood begging let loose I oblige the form I’m all too kind to it. and it replies with blood that swirls in the saline of the eyes I loose the lucky hand from leaking head and look the crude callouses have come crawling up the creaky hands I set to shaping till every crease is a vein and every clean epidermis glistens every finger ends in bone and every bone is broke in many places selectively and slow unlike the feet which crunch against the forest floor the crunching knees that beg no more but bodies always beg, as I’ve seen before: disease asks so much of me like tree branches I creak, like wind I sway, but I chose more complicated form and choice set disease in me, no matter what shape I shape it to today to please me it is rotten still it will not rot fixed firmly to the slowest path of entropy it only scars

^^^