No one told me about this part
of marriage. It’s the part when
I forget you can’t slice swiss
in a mandoline and not lose
some of your thumb. It’s when
you’re across the room before
I can think, before I can turn on
the tap like it’s a burn, a paper-cut.

No one told me about the slow motion.
I move as if in humid, thick vapor,
but I blink and you sit me on the couch,
my paper-towel gauze squeezed
in my hands, my hands over my head.
“Over your head,” you say. Your keys
flash from the hook, and you’re gone
for a first-aid kit we never bought

while I still try to shake the thought
of my left-behind, thin-sliced thumb
left on the blade. No one told me
I would think more about the radishes
I sliced the day before rather than pain
or that the house could feel so quiet
in the time it takes for you to return.