KOEBNER*
Obedient scales
march up my body
single file, where nails lodge.
It is not enough
for deformed skin
to don the camouflage
of silvery plaques, memorials.
Lift each up
and discover
the changed base.
Unrecognisably worn,
undeniably torn, tissue.
Texture
that has morphed.
Unbecoming, melded.
Little wellsprings spurt red
underneath the forgotten cause.
A scrawled signature of old blood lines.
*The Koebner phenomenon refers to the appearance of skin lesions, usually in linear crops, as a response to injury, in individuals with chronic skin conditions including psoriasis.
Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan is a nephrologist and researcher. The Coppiced House, his first collection of poems, was published by Writers Workshop in 2024. His poems have appeared in Poems India, The Punch Magazine and Poets for Science and are expected in 2025, in Muse India and the Annals of Internal Medicine.
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