The Mark You Don't Choose

My mother asked if it was new,

and I looked down at my wrist

like I was meeting something true

for the first time, like I'd missed

the mark until she pointed it out,

this small brown spot about

the size of a pencil eraser,

this thing on the inside of my wrist

where I used to check my heart's razer

edge, where my pulse would list

itself against my thumb

to prove I wasn't numb.

But I don't remember

getting it, don't recall

the moment or the season

when my skin decided to sprawl

this small rebellion, this

small mark that's all I have of this—

this proof that something happened,

that time left its signature,

that I'm not who I was, that I'm wrapped in

a body I don't fully know, that the answer

to my mother's question

is: I don't know, and that's my confession.

Forty years looking at these hands,

at this wrist, and there's a map

I can't read, marks I don't understand,

a body that keeps the gap

between who I think I am

and who I actually am.