Whenever I could, I lived
in the woods—pine forts, turning vines
into ropes and slinging myself

across the creek. Evenings, my mother
stripped me for inspection.
She was looking for deer ticks, hidden

passengers. With precise gentleness,
she wrenched the pinpricks free,
crushing them between her fingers.

If you didn’t catch them early,
the ticks would burrow beneath
the skin. Sealed inside,

lost in their own relentless feed.
In those cases, she funneled a path
with a utility knife, grazing the wound

with a just-extinguished match,
so the tick would release its bite.
They always found my unseen places—

underarms, inner thighs, the loose flap
of a testicle. Nothing changed
her approach: emotionless, methodical.

That is, nothing changed
until Dad passed, and she grew
too drunk for mothering. The inspections

became self-inspections.
Stranded in the full-length mirror,
sweeping my skin with my hands.

That’s how I learned to touch myself—
cautious, thorough, always expecting
a hunger that didn’t belong.