Tag Archives: self-care

I got a manicure in a nice salon for my birthday. I’d promised myself I’d quit a 41-year-old habit. Then I glanced out the window.

Red Umbrella

The technician submerges
my hands in the lavender
water to soften my chewed-on skin.
My fingers flex, the water stings the wounds.
Each sore a metronome of the hum inside.
Too ashamed to relax, I do everything
but close my eyes.
Count towels.
Searching for pores, maybe a frizzy tendril
on the model’s giant face beside me.
I crane my neck to look out the window,
and I see a red umbrella, swaying like a
heartbeat in the brutal sun.
The umbrella tips, and I see him, his sign,
a small board cupped in his left hand:
MEALS.
The sunlight shifts, and
my own reflection hovers in the glass.
The technician massages chamomile lotion
into my skin.
“For relaxation.”
“Is the AC temperature okay, ma’am?”
I stare at the man and his red umbrella
until he walks out of sight.
I ask for red polish
on my fingertips.
I ask the technician if she gets to visit
her family, so far away.
I murmur another apology about my fingers.
The red polish, cured under light.