Surgery

I know something of
            cutting
                        for mending.
My father was a surgeon,

entered bodies, slipped
beneath
            skin.

Cut cancer cells,
            quieted a mad appendix,

plucked out
            steaming bullets
late weekend,
                        full-moon nights,
sewed them up pretty.

Tailor-surgeon, what beautiful
            scars he left, even
on me—
the caught-in-a-can-of-black-beans
            index finger,
a cyst in the center of my chest.

Another surgeon cut my throat.

A Dr. Thomas slit my belly—
            the bikini scar a bit
                                    uneven,
but I was young,
            he was kind.

I know something of surgery.
            I’ve excised cheaters,
            traitors, liars, opportunists—
dropped them
in a fast-moving river.

Mostly I excise words,
            the skill of my vocation,
avocation too, to trim
            detritus, extraneous, repetitive,
often Latinate words—like those—
 

to remove function,
            welcome air,
light,
            music—
                        sew them
up pretty.

---

Elisa Albo was born in Havana. She is co-editor—with Richard Blanco, Caridad Moro-Gronlier, and Nikki Moustaki—of the new anthology, Grabbed: Poets and Writers on Sexual Harassment, Empowerment, and Healing. Her poetry chapbooks are Passage to America and Each Day More. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals such as Alimentum, Bomb Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, MiPoesias, The Notre Dame Review, Poetry East, and SWWIM Every Day, and in anthologies, including Two-Countries: U.S. Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents and Vinegar and Char. An Associate Editor for the South Florida Poetry Journal, she is a professor of English and ESL at Broward College and lives with her husband and daughters in Ft. Lauderdale.