Funny Bruises
It was a funny bruise.
In appearance, it was sorta like
a yellow happy face.
Yea. I guess you could say it was funny.
But… funny ha-ha
or funny looking?
I suppose it could be both, that is,
depending on
who was doing the viewing.

This quirky little happy faced bruise was
just there on her right cheekbone.
Of course,
you had to get fairly close to be able to
make out the smiley mouth and
those two dots for the eyes.
That is, assuming she’d let you get that close.
She had a problem with people invading her
private zone.

Did I mention her husband was left handed?
I suppose that’s relevant.
Somewhat pertinent to their relationship.

If you were paying attention…
If you were observant,
you’d notice that when they were together,
she’d invariably stand with her right hand
up to the side of her face.
It had gotten to the point where it was almost a
subconscious thing.

You could tell by their body language,
they were a couple… of a sort.
And yet,
there was a time in their lives
before happy faces and automatic flinching.
A time when they were a couple of a somewhat
different sort.
You look at them now with their
perpetual roulette of trauma
and it occurs to you that at one time
they as a couple
actually made love.
Throw your eyes ever so slightly out of focus
and you can visualize the two of them lying there,
side by side,
exchanging a certain
tenderness which
has now been long forgotten.
Soften your vision and you see
his left hand reach out to
caress that same right cheek.
Caress and there brush away
a errant wisp of hair which
would otherwise have
passed between lips of such gentle rapture.


You see all that.
You see... You see
all of that.

What happened?
At what precise moment did it twist and turn?
At what point did it mouse,
swell, blemish, wound?
Just what incident
impacted their entire relationship
and turned it into
one giant contusion?
And yet…
And yet, you don’t see that contusion, do you?
Or rather, you never get a chance to
stand there long enough to make it out.
You vaguely register the little bruises
but those of that sort eventually subside
and sink beneath the skin.

You forget about it all.
That is until the next time when
there they are,
standing before you.
Each arm in arm.
Both of them
putting on a happy face.

©05 Jack Hubbell