In the same year a pickup truck crashed

into my parents-in-law—a wordy label

for people who introduced me simply as

daughter—an antimatter particle crashed

to Earth with the force, scientists said,

of 6,300 mosquitos. They could tell that

the particle was present by the signs of decay,

and they calculated back to what had been,

as I imagined our parents’ accident over

and over for weeks until the visions slowed

and I could sleep again, or as I never see

mosquitos, but I know they’ve been present

on my legs by the way my flesh always rises

in large red lumps that linger longer than any

wound should, then disappear as if they were

never there, as if they never mattered at all.