My mother’s skin is so delicate that even the slightest pressure will leave a startling mark. Anemia apparently. (I googled it.)
The softest graze or pinch leaves a bruise that spreads across the parchment of her gentle body like a vast and purpling ink drop.
Did you know that when we’re born, we leave cells inside our mothers to remain there for decades? It’s called microchimerism. (You guessed it: google.)
There’s a tiny part of me cradled inside her still, lulled to sleep by the washing machine swell of her heart.
So yes, maybe anemia. But maybe also a map to a country I used to live in. Maybe a message in a language I was born knowing but have forgotten with time.
