Since Birth, Apparently

She asked how long I'd had it—pen cap

pressed to my shoulder. I said: a while.

She wrote it down. I nodded. Kept

my face composed in the particular style

of someone who knows their own body.

I drove home. Stood in the bathroom

with my phone above my shoulder, trying

to find the angle. Mirror. The room

behind me. Phone in front. Four tries.

Then there it was: brown, button-sized, small.

There my whole life. I hadn't realized

there was a thing to know at all

about my own back. I turned the light off.

Went to bed. The mark is still there.

Probably nothing. That's what she said.

Probably nothing. I'm aware.