The position of the gear shift in your car
will be precisely where your wound meets
moving cord of tendon. And while in front
of the mirror, as you peel away the bandage,
you’ll wonder why you’ve never given blood,
which is really just practice for seeing
your own blood. The iron will settle
on your tongue, but that isn’t why the color
in your head is now pooling at your feet.
Because almost losing consciousness,
you will learn, feels like black velvet pressed
against your nose and mouth, feels like sinking
a real flower in a wet foam block. And later
in the evening—when you lie heavy in your bed
like a cellphone drying out in long jasmine rice,
when the blood is thick but smooth like blue
detergent on the rim of a rinsing basin—you will
fall asleep with the lights on, backlit in front
of the window like an animal crossing traffic,
like a billboard in the shape of a woman,
like a mountain, only softer.

About The Author

Jackie Vega is a senior writing major and French and English minor at Grand Valley State University. She is the editor in chief of Fishladder, Grand Valley’s undergraduate literature and arts journal, and she also works in the university’s library as a research consultant. After graduation, she plans to pursue an MLS as well as an MFA in poetry.

Contents

Of a Woman

About The Author