30/30 Day 26: Apologies

You say I would be better off
                        apologizing to the ruptured capillaries
            of your neck, shoulder, collarbone.

Some things I refuse to do. Others
                        I refuse and do anyway. You repay
            the kindness by making a prison

wall of my back, the captive days
                        hash-marked and raw. Summer languishes,
            the breeze from the window, the fan

at the foot of the bed, like lying
                        in a shallow, lukewarm stream. Nothing
            will cleanse what bleeds through

the next page, the indelible reminders.
                        What stains and does not wash. What
            is not washed, in case.