Elise Skidmore

The cut was long and lean, 
like a fashion model's jawline,
not a gaping wound,
like someone had lost their mind
and tried to saw off their leg.

The doctor smiled and said,
“In time you'll hardly see the scar at all,”
as he tied off the final stitch
with a little bow.

She wouldn't cry—not one single tear.
She refused to let vanity rule her.

It was her own fault for choosing
to run places not meant for running.
She should've stuck to the park,
with its flat paths and fewer obstructions
to ambush her when she was lost
to the rhythms inside her head. 

Her problem, she admitted,
was that she was vain about her legs;
they were her best feature.
There would be no more 
micro-miniskirts in her future.
No more gowns slit up high on her thigh.
She supposed she'd be doomed
to wearing slacks forever.

Tight skinny jeans might not be too bad,
though she'd have to keep running
if she was going to do them justice.
Maybe she'd get a beautiful tattoo
that left the scar invisible. 
Things could've been so much worse
and she was more than a pair of great legs.

She refused to let vanity rule her.
She wouldn't cry—
not one single tear.

~Elise Skidmore ©2023

NOTE: This poem was written for a prompt to write a poem using at least three of the following six words:

1. Bow
2. Lean
3. Park
4. Saw
5. Tear
6. Wound

You got extra credit if you used all six. I like the challenge of using random words to create something that doesn’t sound like it came from random words, something that sounds seamless, where the required words become almost invisible, rather than forced. You can be the judge whether I succeeded this time or not.