Sometimes I Pick at the Past – a poem by Nathaniel Lee Hansen

Sometimes I Pick at the Past


It’s an insect bite I can’t leave alone,
I won’t bother with the hydrocortisone,
instead digging with my fingernail 
at the edge, working my way around it, 
saying, I won’t pick it all the way off 
this time. I’ll just pick a little bit. 

I never do though.

I end up with the scab picked off, 
dabbing the spot with a tissue
whose white turns red. You tell me,
I already bled for you, my child. 
Why do you do this to yourself?

And you hold your hand over mine, 
pressure clotting my blood and later
healing my wounds.

Nathaniel Lee Hansen is the author of the short-story collection Measuring Time & Other Stories (Wiseblood Books, 2019) and the poetry collection Your Twenty-First Century Prayer Life (Cascade Books, 2018). His website is plainswriter.com. He is on X @plainswriter.