Blessed

B

L

E

S

S

E

D

His neck read

A vertical stripe in Baskerville Old Face, tinted red

Just behind the earlobe, from his hairline to his back

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I am,” he said.

Earlier that same day,

I met a man who’d narrowly escaped near-certain death

Full of joy, he was, with his one eye left

“Why?” I’d asked.

“Because I am,” he said, “BLESSED.”

Vertical or horizontal, no matter how expressed,

I discovered I underuse this special word

BLESSED