Timothy Laurence Marsh is a Professor of English at Texas Tech University-Costa Rica. His fiction and essays have appeared in The New Welsh Review, Fourth River, Ninth Letter, Catapult, The Los Angeles Review, and Grist, among others. His research interests include contemporary short fiction, disinformation studies, and social media ethics.
With my first blood, a scale appears, hard and iridescent in the soft skin below my arm. In bathroom mirror light, elbow raised, I press and prod, fingertips rusted from…