From a vantage point in the door mirror I can see the vascular streaks along my back, sinewy contorsions of red and blue lines that disseminate into fractal patterns. Red lines to leafy arms, to intermediate expanses of purple to leafy tendrils of blue to thicker blue lines. Could they be tattoos? They seem so shallow, and the red lines so thin . . Yes, the arteries are always smaller than the veins. From the backs of my legs to well over my shoulders, they course between the scapulae and disappear over my left clavicle like a loosely tossed scarf. . . So much purple. I must not be well perfused. When did this happen? Sclerotic, no, . . veins, bulbous veins ... varicosities!
. . but I'm only in my twenties . .
am I?
How deep the purple. I hadn't noticed that before. A zoom-in view, expanse of purple. More than purple, violet, islands of blue, points of red, perhaps all points that I cannot yet see. Travels in one diretion. The leafy tendrils of red become larger only to wend into more tendrils of leafy red until I lose the magnification and all descends to purple, until the purple resurfaces into leafy blueness that tendrils upwards and onward in mild pulsations. Yes. This is vasculature.
I crane my back and the pattern etches a depressed pattern in the wrinkling skin until it disappears altogether, only to reappear as I lean over to turn the faucet.
lynn@pharmdec.wustl.edu