this afternoon,
i found a mulberry stain
on my orange shirt
it looked like a bullet wound,
dark purple
in a sea of pure,
bright color
it wasn’t a splatter:
that would have looked
artistic,
or deliberate,
or at least reckless
this was a single drop
an ellipse stained into my chest
just above my heart
and yet, it was
exactly
as it should have been
— ptkh 06.21.10