Incision, by Jillian Weise

The nape of my neck is a tell.
Otherwise you wouldn't notice
with the layers of clothes: shirt,
vest, scarf, coat.

Undressed, it's a solitary hole
in the middle of a white wall, you
can't help but stare, what picture
hung there, what of, what color?

It gets worse than this, you'll
want to see how far down it goes.
The circular incision top and bottom,
a line contained by points.

The seal of an envelope, opened.

Incision, by Jillian Weise.

On the surface of it, Incision may be about a surgery the speaker had just had.  The coat and scarf are perhaps those of a doctor, the scarf a metaphor of stethoscope.  The white wall may be that of a hospital.  A scar is often a curiosity for us: Sometimes we cannot help but stare, and we want to know what happened.  But for the speaker herself, it is an opening-up that is discomforting.  Beyond the physical, Incision is a personal, emotional experience.  This opening-up is more than an invasion of privacy, rather it is a cutting into what ought to stay private between her and someone with whom she is intimate ("an envelope, opened").

Jillian Weise