The black hole was the size of a raindrop

before I noticed it. But there it was

under my skin: an abscess growing

larger every day, a hot radioactive egg.

Like a magnet, it called all my pain to itself.

And it was hard not to mistake myself for my pain.

That’s where my self was concentrated:

just under the skin. Infected & swelling.

At the ultrasound, trying not to faint

as the doctor passed the wand over

my pain, I saw the place where pain

could be proven: me, me, absence of me.

Was it an absence or a presence?

It was a black circle, like a lake with a drain.