Home > Poetry >  Damage
Published:

Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper

Damage

There’s an armless man on a hill
eating a candy bar and we wonder

which war, what factory machine.
Looks like his shoulder’s gone too.

Looks like the sky is a blue curtain
closing in on him. There’s a cloud

gliding into his rib. There’s his hand
rising to his mouth, teeth grinding

chocolate, the gift of sugar his lone
hand keeps delivering to his mouth.

Whatever happened, he’s moved on,
wakes, showers and buttons his shirt

by himself, his hand a swan pecking
down his chest. Wakes from a dream

where his missing arm flies into
his sleeve to pay his body a visit.

Wakes and buttons down and buys
a candy bar at the store. Damage

makes a notch on us all, with some
another notch. With some it steadies

the chisel and brings the hammer
down quick, brings a lesson on loss.

Blades take fingers. A tractor makes
a girl say goodbye to her footprints.

As for the armless man on the hill,
looks like the candy bar’s gone.

He looks like a sculpture, standing
up there with a hand on his waist:

a general waiting for the enemy,
hiding his saber behind his back.

Portrait of David Hernandez

David Hernandez’s most recent collection of poems, Hello I Must Be Going (Pitt Poetry Series, 2022), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has been awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes. Hernandez teaches creative writing at California State University, Long Beach, and is married to writer Lisa Glatt. (updated 4/2025)

Back to top