I think of all the ways
the women in my family have died,

the slow disease of genetics and childbirth
here in the curve of my cheekbone.

The doctor speaks as if this bloodwork
were routine, and I smile to make it false,

make this procedure only a safe precaution.
I’m told to focus on the opposite wall,

on the poster of a record-breaking runner
whose breath I imagine leaving

in heavy strides toward a finish line.
But what I want is to forget

that a body is capable of losing.
The first time I saw the dying,

[...]