The Skin After

Three days out from the cookout and I'm peeling

in front of the bathroom mirror, fluorescent and awake —

a strip of shoulder lifting off in one clean feeling,

translucent, barely there, the softest kind of break.

It curled on the tile. I left it there a while.

Almost colorless. Almost nothing at all.

The new skin underneath, too pink, too fragile —

something that flinches at the lightest call.

I knew by six o'clock I'd stayed too long.

But someone handed me a drink and someone laughed

and the sun kept going and I went along

and did not do the math.

Now my shoulder looks like it survived

something minor that it's not sure it survived.