QOD: Unlike a dog, how can a turtle ever be naked?

A touch football game,
a laughing clutch,
a sprinkler head.
Heavy plaster encases him from hip to throat.
Nothing to do but wait, and hope.

Friends come,
quiet,
then noisy,
and the party moves on without him.

She works night shift,
keeps her face in shadow
as her fingers touch,
smooth,
bathe.
She bends a hanger,
snakes it under the cast to find an insane itch.

He sees at last her burned face.
Embarrassed,
she speaks of a dance thrown by cruel boys.
The ribbon she won hangs
in her tiny apartment,
a reminder of what her patients face,
a reminder of what the world can do to
the broken,
the maimed,
the diminished.

He’s a lucky man.
He escapes his shell,
faces therapy
instead of a chair.
Luckier still,
her naked face has become dear, and beautiful.