Scurvy

When sailors crossed the oceans

their gums bled and their teeth

grew as loose as screen doors

in the wind. They ate old biscuits

and salted meats and bruises

appeared like stains over

their bodies and then they began

unhealing: the arm they broke

as a child when they fell from

a tree unmended and the gash

in their knee when they were thrown

from a horse reopened. All the old

wounds were new, as if

time had undone itself, as if

each injury is permanent,

just waiting to show itself again.

It was worse the second time,

not having fallen from a tree

or horse, but suffering anyway,

in the middle of the ocean, where,

for weeks, no land was visible.