Still Attached

Three days. The border had gone gray

from showers I stopped counting.

I lifted the edges first—they came,

already soft, already done.

The center took longer.

That's the part I stood there for.

Underneath: pale skin, dented

in a clean rectangle. Too new.

The kind of pink that means

it hasn't met the air until now.

I held my wrist above the drain.

Dropped the strip.

Ran the water cold.

The ghost the adhesive leaves—

gray outline, faintly sticky—

still on my wrist when I got to work.

I kept looking at it.

Not the cut.

The shape of what had covered it.