the bruise beneath the bruise beneath the bruise

the bruise beneath the bruise beneath the bruise

refuses to decompose, and

it boasts its own clandestine tremor beneath the cartilage.

everyone said my grandpa carried the war within his body.

a purple throb tucked slyly beneath the sternum, a tremor that began to flare

with every monsoon season;

not a metaphor, but, like, an actual swell in the ribs, 

that carried its own kind of heartbeat —

I’ve heard it before, how men leave their homeland

only to drag back ghosts through customs.

history can’t tax this, but the body remembers;

that’s why I know the bruise disagrees when, I hear

             he bent his knee to tie his boot,

             pain catching him like old shrapnel,

             despite protests that it was nothing.

when he died, the hospital light flattened him to chalk, blanched skin, breath thin;

             yet the bruise glowed dark, stubborn as a fruit that refuses to rot. 

             mother pressed a hand to his ribs 

             like she wanted, and maybe could, negotiate with the past.