this poem begins with harvesting –
a small section only
a narrow strip
taken from the outer thigh,
the upper arm,
some area of the self
unlikely to be missed

that’s perfectly fine –
dead skin drifts from me all day
causing a fine domestic weather
the body is constantly editing itself
deleting, replacing,
sending out revisions

so have this beautiful square of my conceit
cut clean from its climate
transferred, secured with sutures,
to be observed for signs of rejection

cells begin exchanging
their private information
the capillaries make their red arguments
the common mammalian denominator:
keratinocytes
and the body’s ancient willingness
to mistake a foreign wound
for its own

some grafts fail, of course,
sometimes an invisible border patrol
works through the night,
identifying every cell
that cannot account for itself
the republic of the body shining its raw refusal

sometimes a stranger’s blood
enters the prosody and the graft responds
nerve endings sing along
the skin acquires sensation
the poem lives somewhere you cannot itch

meanwhile the donor site heals over
and a new layer forms –
thin,
shiny,
slightly numb
as if no piece of me
were out there 
vascularized,
answering to a stranger’s blood.