Coherence

Two months after the wasp sting, the bruise is hard and small, the size of a button on a men’s dress shirt. A faint ring shadows the bruise, and she touches the center. Its hardness grows into her arm, toward the bone, and she feels the burn under her fingers. He says he doesn’t see anything. She thinks her forearm will become a rock if she is not careful. Her body feels further away already.

Some morning when she leaves the house, the rock will break off from her body when she knocks against the doorjamb, forgetting the hardness that pulls against her shoulder. It will fall in many pieces, get lost in the gravel. She won’t notice for a long time. Only when she reaches for the bruise, after they have set out their clothes for the next day, after he tells her she is pretty, after he quiets and breathes with his whole body, will she imagine the loss.