Why Is a Scar on a Man…

Why is a scar on a man a mark of distinction,
on a woman a mark of disfigurement?

I don’t know.

Why is it funny when a man loses his hair
and tragic when a woman loses hers?

I don’t know.

Could you make love to a bald-headed woman?

What will you tell her
when the X-Rays turn the scar
on her breast raw-
hamburger red?

When she’s bald, lost her eyebrows,
and lies closed-eyed
with a skeletal look,
will you kiss her
and tell her
she’s beautiful?

I don’t know.

What do you do
in the bedroom,
when she is thinking
of death
and she cries?

I hold her hand           and I breathe.

Joe Milosch will feature at Poetry & Art at SDAI on Sept. 21. Click for more info.

Joe Milosch graduated from San Diego State University. His poetry has appeared in various magazines. He has multiple nominations for the Pushcart and received the Hackney Award for Literature. His books are The Lost Pilgrimage Poems and Landscape of a Hummingbird.

For the last 40 years, he worked as a trail locator for the Cleveland National Forest and as a construction inspector in the private sector. His poetry draws on those experiences, as well as his experiences growing up in the farmland north of Detroit, Mich., and his army experiences during the Vietnam War.