Ann E. Wallace

TUFTED

Listen to the audio version.

I live with a belly full
of scars pulling
the skin like tufted
upholstery
worn uneven and bumpy,
sinking over
time
into the empty
shallows
where organs once
pulsed

the smallest nips
are invisible silver
flecks scattered
across my midsection,
revealed under the right
angle of light,
as if I have been
pecked away at from
inside

while the foreboding bikini
line incision has shrunk
from eight fiery inches, to seven
to six over decades and
faded into a benign nothing,
unseen out of sight
but not quite
gone

Ann E. Wallace writes of life with illness, motherhood, and other everyday realities. Her work has recently appeared in The Literary Nest, HerStory, Snapdragon, Rogue Agent, The Same, as well as in Wordgathering. She lives in Jersey City, NJ and is on Twitter @annwlace409.