My mother thinks they’re unsightly,
likens them to cold sores. She asked
me to serve on the altar so the cassock
would cover the spot on my neck.
But as I sat politely with my hands folded
I fought the urge to pull my hair back and
crane my neck like a vine reaching for the sun
so the priest or maybe God could see the violet
bloom up from my collarbone, could
see the half eaten plum bleeding in its
purple red sweetness down my neck.
Before him, boys were afraid to leave marks,
knew they wouldn’t be around long enough
to watch a red sunrise fade into the afternoon
of my clean skin. But he gets lost in the nape
of my neck in the same way I get lost in the
great length of his eyelashes when he’s watching TV,
mesmerized by the way they flit back and forth
like moths. I kneeled before my God last Sunday
and likened the way the light shone in the stain
glass to what my mother called a bruise.
The congregation murmured in an inaudible union
and I could only think of the deep communion red
beneath my cassock and how I hoped God could see it,
that He could see I finally got what I’d been praying for,
someone who is not afraid to leave a mark.