Each time I tell the story, minor details change. Sometimes it's raining. Other times a light drizzle. Once, it never even rained at all. The shirt you wore was blue but maybe it was beige? In one version, you hissed as you danced your trembling hand under the faucet to drown all the blood. In the extended epilogue of that version, you had just thrown a vase at my head and missed, the shrapnel wounding you instead. On the days that I am fearless and poet enough, I tell people the rehearsed story: the one where you walked through the front door and kissed me as I fisted your beige t-shirt with the blue stripes. I throw a light drizzle of olive oil on the focaccia bread and pretend not to tremble when you raise your voice. You don’t “mean” to throw the vase but you do anyway and the wound finds you instead and I think to myself that this might be my only form of justice. Now, years later, I dance to drown out the blood.
