"Wound Care," from lumière issue 7, spring 2022.
Wound Care
You see it everywhere, as soon as you look up aftercare: Your new tattoo is an open wound. This is not the language they use for surgery– No wounds, no cuts you can’t heal– They send me home with a pound less flesh, and a pound more paper, all concise and clinical. My instructions are a series of Nos: No picking. No scratching. No sunlight. No ibuprofen. Only one of them prescribes me an opioid. Fine. I drape my leg over the sanitized armrest, close my eyes, and breathe through the pain. But the cleaning– –the wound care– –the wound– I’m scared when the nurse unwraps my surgical vest, and I’m scared when she cuts the styrofoam from my skin, and I’m scared when she tells me what beautiful work he’s done; I’m scared when he sends me home gauze and bandage bulging, and then I don’t get to be scared anymore, I’m home, and there’s nothing left but wound care. So I listen to what my [artist|surgeon] tells me: Don’t scrub. Don’t let the [wound|stitch] face the stream. [Run soap and water over your hands| Squeeze a cloth over your collarbone,] let the water fall down your body, and pat dry. Rubbing soap between my palms, and suds between my fingertips, I peel away the edges of my bandages: Dermis deep ink weeping black fluid down the drain. Cherry chisel tracks red heat radiating under my ribs. My body takes an unfamiliar shape underneath my shirt, freshly sculpted and swollen. I press a drop of ointment between my fingers and rub it over the wound, [ink in intention|carving in scarlet], body of canvas and clay.













