14th Street Gym

14th STREET GYM

Beauty that does not disguise the wound, 
but reads through the lack of it, 
the one-armed man lifts himself again

on the assisted pull-up machine—
sleeve of sparrows and morning glories
swelling with each upward pull.

In the locker room, I praise his ink
and he turns to thank me, and so I notice 
(what you can't restore, inscribe)

the blue wing needled on the socket. 

                   ~ Mark Doty