Bruise

Likely mauve means tenderness
toughening gradually

An ache of ochre subsumed by
the blue-black of impact

I remember thinking
this will leave a mark
but I don’t remember why

In the flowerbed bordering our house
is a wound of violets
the size of a basketball

No one saw it land
No one can say
for sure what happened

All we can prove
is effect

That which stood and stretched
now takes the shape of
what destroyed it

Elizabeth Onusko’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal, Slice Magazine, Linebreak, Poetry East, The Collagist, Front Porch Journal, Radar Poetry, and The Adroit Journal, among others, and has been featured on Verse Daily. She is the author of a chapbook, The Prague Winter (Finishing Line Press).