Soft

The water runs hot over my hands.

Soap and steam.

The ordinary ritual of cleaning up.

I roll my sleeves.

The skin underneath is pale,

the kind of pale that only sees

the inside of my wrists,

the underside of things,

the soft places nobody

usually looks at.

There's a vein there.

Blue. Thin. Visible through

skin so translucent

you can almost see through it

to whatever is beneath the skin,

beneath the vein,

beneath the careful construction

of staying intact.

I watch the water

run over it.

The vein doesn't move.

It just sits there,

a thin line of proof

that I'm held together

by something delicate,

something that would

very easily

give way.

One small wrong thing.

One small pressure.

One small decision.

And the water would be

a different color.

I don't know why I'm thinking this.

The dishes are clean now.

My wrists are fine.

Everything is fine.

But I've seen the soft part,

and I can't unsee it,

can't unknow

how close

the fragile part

is to the surface.