Keening

When you have the courage to look
There are the frankenstein stitches
Nipples cut and pasted 
Like a toddler’s art project.

Dull aches, prickly shocks and stabs
Mark a change in tides
Like eddies and whirlpools as
The pain comes and goes.

Your body revels in the attention:
At last, look at me, see me!
Even if it is the looking of a car crash,
As if this is someone else’s tragedy.

From somewhere deeper than flesh
You hear a muffled keening 
Where horror and joy mingle freely with all the 
Efficient grace of a pair of ballroom dancers.