Just Red

I stand in Walgreens while my mother sleeps. The store is fluorescent and almost empty. My father is ailing in a nursing home, my friend is dying in the hospital. What I want tonight is lipstick. As pure a red as I can find—no coral undertones, no rust or fawn. Just red. Ignoring the salespeople, I untwist tubes and scrawl each color on my wrist, till the blue veins beneath my skin disappear behind smeared bars. I select one. Back in my mother's apartment, silence. I limn my lips back out of my wan face. There they are again: smacky and wanting.