LABOR DAY

by Nick Rossi

 

 

I bit the blister off my finger
one of the ones that had bubbled up under the hot cinderblocks last night
when I’d been drunk and dumb and happy.
I spit skin and the hole pulsed deep
grocery-store-fish-flesh pink
surrounded by near translucent dermis
dead and thick
circled in softer pink of surface flesh.

I looked at it a long time on the parkway
the spot sending waves of pain
up through ancient, hardwired neural networks
the ones that say, “This hurts! Don’t die! Not yet!”
I pushed my fingertip against the steering wheel
smeared the fibrin on the faux leather
and counted the passing exit ramps
wondering when I should bite off the rest.

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