A Bruise
On keeping the score.
Oh, that looks bad. I have to agree. Right on my thigh, just above my knee, maybe three inches across. Deep blue in the center and spreading out, greenish and yellow at the edge.
It happens carrying my cargo bike up the little set of stairs, I realized, after the second time. At work, there’s no safe place to park the bike and no other way to get it inside. It’s not that heavy, I always say to anyone who sees me there, about to lift it, because it isn’t, but it’s awkward. I have to brace it against my leg as I go, and so, the bruise.
I’m not sure what to do about it—the bruise that’s now, apparently, a fixture. My constant companion. Bodies were a mistake, I was saying, laughing at all the ways we get hurt.
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