No Tape To Hold the Napkin Down

I have a wart on my hand. It grows
Every time I cut the top and scrape it
With my nail. Once  it was so small I could
Barely feel
But now the toenail clippers don’t even
Get all of it one go.

From all the little blood-vessels, the blood
Mixes with some kind of clear something
And I don’t even wait for it to stop to push
Prickly not-skin against clipper blade and
Clip.

Looks like a bullet hole or something
Hideous it was so small once.

A long time ago I had another one
On my hand like this but I never messed
And I wrote back then like some fevered
Dream and imagined it on my main
Man’s hand, like a gift from the gods or
A sign of fate–look, I’d imagine, He Is The
King Returned, he wears the sign of
Gods on his palm–and a palm reader would
Read his lines and say, "perfect,"

And it never grew any bigger on my hand
And she stopped talking to me and
It went away eventually like an
Oak leaf in autumn, a
Crypt in spring

I didn’t finish that book either, I should
Stop picking at myself and maybe my
Insides will stop being ugly.