Scar Tissue by Peter Russell: Love is in the air, Poetry and Stories of Love by Glasgow Writers.

Scar Tissue

(Peter Russell)

The heart’s first infection is the deepest

And its memory when young is blindest

When kisses course our bloodstream the sweetest

And lovers are the wildest, and the kindest.

Youth gives strength, not active immunity,

We’ve had no contact as first love’s vaccine;

Young hearts sweat fevers with impunity,

And when broken, must endure cold quarantine.

But though the heart like frozen flesh shatters

It regroups, rebuilds, heals its deep fissures

To new shapes, gives to love new forms and matter

Some tender pink, and others scar tissues.

The young heart is glass that breaks in the hour:

The old possesses a battered, hurt power.

Publisher of Pat's Guide to Glasgow West End; the community guide to the West End of Glasgow. Fiction and non-fiction writer.