“What Lives in the Muscle After the Bruise is Gone”^*

The morning after / she weaves

an arm around my waist / chin cupped

in the easy basin of my shoulder

while I fry yolks & fat to sizzle.

She takes a palm & massages

the clay of muscle / snorts.

Says Oh / that makes sense.

& I ask her what she means.

She tells me I have trauma / shoulders.

That's what they call it / in massage therapy

when the body holds / its complex

post-traumatic this way.

This way being / a wall,

all tucked into the trapezius

that bloom / of muscle arching

up your neck / then halfway down the spine.