My Navel

Geez, it had been over five years
since I cleaned my bellybutton
no telling what had got
in there by now
I knew it was time to dig
because it was starting
to itch, incessantly

I got out my blunt pair of forceps
and started digging
after fifty-two layers of lint
I struck something solid
it was a tiny gold star
must have fallen out
of the Christmas card
my sister had sent
two years ago

she had put it in an envelope
with the card and about a thousand
other tiny stars

it had taken me
more than a month, I thought
to find them all
after they had come
spilling out on that joyous day

well, here was the last one

next I found
this tiny button
recognized immediately
that it was from
my best dress shirt
I had always wondered
why I couldn’t find it
when I had needed
to sew it back on
for that very important interview
and had figured
that the cat had swallowed it
on one of his nightly bouts
of play where he would
race through the house
clawing at everything
and climbing the walls
before we had him spayed

then there was this little stone
smooth, like it had been
tumbled for ages
and wondered where
I had picked this up
I wasn’t a gravel digger
nor did I ever pour
concrete for a living
but remembered
one of many Friday nights
where I had gotten drunk
and went running in the rain
lost my footing
on a gravel drive
and flew to the ground
tearing up my knees
I was coated with gravel
but could only think
of the bleeding knees

excavating further
brought forth a tiny screw
just like the one I had taken
out of my computer
and was never able to find
when I put it back together

one of the circuit boards
still has only three screws
but has worked consistently
that way ever since
without this extra piece
with which I have been
walking around everywhere

I could tell
I was getting near the end
as the forceps now went
more than an inch deep
deeper than I had ever
before dared go
and then the pain
wondering
if I had ruptured
my abdominal wall

as I quickly
pulled out the forceps
there was something
stuck between the ends

about a quarter of an inch
hard and brown

what in the heck
I thought
could this be?

I took it into the lab
analyzed it
put it under the microscope
beamed it with x-rays
and ultraviolet light
dissolved it in acid
to identify the metals
desiccated
then sublimated the remainder
and fed it into
the mass spectrometer

when I compared
its composition
to all known
substances
it turned out to be
an original piece
of placenta
cut off at my birth

it had sat in there
rotting and festering
for forty-seven years

at that point
I knew
I had come
full circle
in my life
and had tunneled
through my world
turning it
inside out
traveling
back in time
through insignificant
events
so much more memorable
than the rest of it all


~ Ron