Explanation of Benefits

The pile had been on the table since November.

I gave it a Sunday afternoon

like it was owed one.

Bill, bill, something from the state,

an envelope from the insurance company

that took both hands to open —

the thick kind, official,

designed to feel like news.

First cut: index finger, the statement itself,

a clean line I didn't notice

until the paper was already in the recycling.

Second cut: same envelope, the flap.

I checked it this time. Small.

Third: something about a premium adjustment.

I read it twice and still

didn't understand what they were adjusting.

Fourth: the knuckle.

Already-cut skin.

I said something out loud

that wasn't a word.

The red line across the knuckle

was thin as a crease in a map.

The paper that made it

sat in the recycling on top of the others,

white, unbothered,

all of them in the recycling now,

the whole afternoon in the recycling,

and my hand sitting in my lap

in the quiet

with its four small lessons

about the cost

of things

I thought I understood.