Burned (from the archive)

Burned,

beyond belief, though she can tell
it has been this way for many years
--a mistake on a top of a train,
live wires arcing
through his small frame, shooting volts
through the soles of his feet,
stigmata--
yes, this happens, or a pipe bomb
in a trashcan in the backyard or even
a father, lunging at him,
a wounded beast, gascan in hand
after his mother left,
there are so many ways this can be
it doesn't matter, he is here
at the cafe, face
half-cooked, skin fused over one socket, arms
mottled in every shade of distress
she looks
without looking, like everyone else, sees
his white cane tapping, thinks she can
look a little closer, now that she knows
he can't see her seeing although she knows
he can
always see people seeing that's the way it is
when you are
but she has no shame
takes a good long look and he turns
toward her so she can see him staring
at her staring, eyes lidless and black, hawk-frozen,
still a blur for him, hands feeding
air for the scones somehow he knows
to grab a currant not a cheese roll
by mistake or maybe he just takes what he gets
and that's that fumbles for change
his coins spill to checkered tiles and no one
moves, he is self-sufficient after all, and he finds
most of the coins but not the quarter he needs
it is down there somewhere, he douses
with his cane, scrapes his shoe
along the floor he's almost got it
but misses and she is omniscient, can see
what he can't, but she bends
down, scoops up the quarter, hands it to him just
as he asks if anyone sees and she sees
places on him that are not burned, places where flame
hopscotched across flesh, leaving skin unscorched,
like hill fires that take one house, leapfrog over
the next he takes his scone
to go and she is left drinking her half-leaded
latte but she can still see him drop
the warm bag on his kitchen table, lean
his wand in the corner, move
toward a patch of sun to feel the warmth
on his skin he takes his shirt off she knows
the graze of his leathery fingers, not over the small
buttery patches untouched by flame: under his arms, nor behind
his knees, nor his sex, hard and smooth as a dancer's thigh,
but across the lacquered scars of his chest,
his grafted clavicle,
where nerves closer to the surface
shiver, remembering, at his touch
what it is to feel too much

--Eilish Nagle