The days leading up to the surgery had been unsettling. The doctor had told me there were two ways it would go. He would start by making three small incisions in my side (like Jesus, I thought), and go in with three long orthoscopic robot fingers that he would operate remotely. He or the robots would then place a patch over the tear in my stomach lining, hold it in place with dissolvable screws.

That was the best option.

The trouble was, I already have a scar from my sternum to my belly button, from a motorcycle accident when I was eighteen. This scar, the doctor explained, had likely filled my insides with what he called “cobwebs,” and if these cobwebs were too dense then he might need to cut me open. I know how long it takes to heal once you are cut open, and the pain of it, and I wasn’t looking forward to that option.But I wouldn’t know which door the robots had walked through until I came out of the anesthesia.

Here’s a poem from my book I Will Destroy You:

NOW

Tomorrow, or

the day after, I’ll press my

mouth to your scar & run
my tongue along it

so I can taste how you were once
opened, so I can know where

you never closed. Each

scar’s a door, we know
that—I want to whisper into

yours, I want my hands

to hover over it, I want you
to whisper please

I want you (please please please)
to beg for it.

~~~

Last week I got this letter:

Dear Nick,

I’ve long admired your work. I run a poetry read and critique and we were discussing your poems last night. We came to “Now” and there was a lot of confusion about the last two couplets . . .