Sonnet to knee scabs

Dark scab, ruby gem, dragon egg, scarab
body, round and bulging—a current runs
under the blood cage, pink flesh of cherubs.
We are baby-skinned wielders with shotguns.

Porcelain warriors that kill for fun
makes good TV, yet one rusty nail will slice
a toe in real life, skin spread butterfly, sun
will cook people to lobsters—skin is thin ice.

But the body craves old paradise.
She speaks a maternal, native tongue
that heals and binds, that crystalizes vice 
into a throbbing pact of blood, air, and lung.

Scabs are amputations, itching
for the garden. Scabs are the body, stitching