He didn't say cold didn't say breathe —

He didn't say cold, didn't say breathe —

just pressed the metal to my back, and I flinched.

The body doing what it does. The sheath

of skin recoiling by half an inch.

He said sorry for that. Flat, practiced, gone

before it landed. I said it's fine. It's fine.

It's fine — three times, which tells you something's wrong

with the reassurance, not with the spine.

All the way home I kept returning to it —

not the cold, but the flinch. The involuntary

pull away. My body just knew it

before I did. A half-second inventory.

Routine, he said. You look healthy. See you next year.

The flinch was first, though. I'm still thinking about it here.