The Blind Side

The woman in front of me at the express lane

was hunting for a coupon or a five-dollar bill.

She looked tired, carrying some invisible strain,

and for a second, the whole store went still.

She bowed her head to look in the deep of her purse,

and the salt-and-pepper hair parted like a sea.

I saw the pale skin, a vulnerability worse

than any confession she could offer to me.

Two small, raised moles formed a constellation

just where the spine meets the base of the skull.

A map of a life, a quiet revelation

of how much we carry until we grow dull.

It felt like a secret I wasn't supposed to know,

how easy it is for a body to break or to go.