You’ll heal, she says, if I can get
the poison out. I take off
my shirt to let my mother
squeeze pimples on my
back. I imagine she
imagines me naked, different
from the child I was
before I never let her
see me undressed, not once
in a towel, never
swimming in front of her
again. She doesn’t know
last week I had sex
with a stranger and cringed
each time he put his
hands on my back,
the broken-out skin
Braille across my shoulders—
a scrape of fingernail, pinch,
warm spill, the careful wiping
and our careful quiet.