Lease Agreement

The mark on my thigh is a sickly shade,

a yellowing map of a debt unpaid.

I watch it fade from a purple bloom

to a mustard stain in the afternoon.

I pinch the skin near the edge of the rot;

it stays in a ridge, a tangled knot.

The fabric is cheap and the seams are thin,

I’m just a tenant beneath this skin.

It bunches up like a wrinkled sheet,

cold at the joints and tired in the feet.