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Scar

by Terry Miller

The scar that travels
from my right ear
to the middle of my throat
is a masterpiece
of surgeon skill,
a surgeon
who said to death
"You will not have him!"

My rigid, ragged friend
is a testament
to a small army
of health care workers,
who listened
to the sliced air of the sickle
and came to my aid.

When curious children
trace my badge
with tiny, innocent fingers
and ask,
"What happened?"

I smile and say,

"We won."

Terry Miller is a oral and throat cancer survior who is a published and award winning poet from Fort Bend County, Texas. His work has been published in numerous journals including the Live Oak Review, Lamplighter Review, Houston Literary Review, and Boston Literary Magazine, and has been widely anthologized. In January 2010, his poem "The Diagnosis" will appear in the Birmingham Arts Journal. His first book of poetry, The Day I Killed Superman, will be released in 2010. He is a member of the American Academy of Poets, the Poetry Society of Texas, the Gulf Coast Poets Society, the founder of the Fort Bend Poets Group and the Fort Bend County Poet Laureate Competition. Terry is a professor of eMarketing and holds an Innovation Fellowship at Kaplan University.