The Third Day Color

The color today is not yesterday's color.

Yesterday it was darker, angrier,

more red underneath. Today

it's shifted into something else—

a blue-green that doesn't exist anywhere else

on my body. Nowhere else exists this shade.

The oval shape where I hit the table.

The light hits it differently depending

on how I sit. If I angle my leg

one way, it's almost purple.

Another way, it's the blue

of old water, stagnant, cold.

I've been staring at it since this morning.

Three days old now. The color

is what bruises are supposed to look like

in cartoons, but it's real,

it's mine, it's healing itself

into this specific hue

that only exists on my shin.

The swelling's gone down.

The pain is almost nothing.

But the color—the color is still

announcing something. Still

telling a story about what happened.

About my carelessness. About

not paying attention to where

my body is in space.

About the stupidity of furniture

and the fragility of skin.

The bruise is beautiful in a way

I don't want to admit.

Beautiful in the way that damage

sometimes is. A small rebellion

my body made against the table,

and the table won. But the color—

the color is the proof that something

happened here. That I was here.