I press the distention to show
the doctor what I mean. See?
It pops right back out. He kneels
to the floor, cups a hand under my knee,
takes the heel of my foot
into his other palm.
For a moment I’m Cinderella
waiting for a glass slipper
and the chance to tell my step-sisters
to Fuck off  but there is a nurse
in the corner shuffling
pages of my paperwork,
looking at all the things
that have ever been wrong with me –
all the times my body paid
for its clumsiness in bruises and stitches,
flus, mysterious fevers and wet coughs,
the bulges in skin (like this one)
that kept me awake at night
wondering Am I going to die,
knowing the answer
is yes, that it will always be
yes. One day on the calendar
waits to claim me and when
the doctor presses his thumb
into the small swell on my calf
and says with a half-laugh
It’s an ecstatic vein –
don’t cut it shaving
or you’ll bleed to death
I say ok but I mean I already know.

-Leigh Anne Hornfeldt