Blood Work
The white sky presses a gauze pad
over my vein as the needle slips out.
The woman who draws from me smiles, always
remembers me. No matter how skinny I might get.
No matter how dark the circles under my eyes,
she remembers me and how easy my veins are,
so visible, so thick, she doesn’t even have to tie my arm,
but she does, and takes the smaller vein
the bigger one too easy. I don’t tell her
the best to take my blood was a different woman
who used to draw blood from animals,
part the fur, find their blue tap and drain.
She lets me play with my filled tubes. Can you feel
how warm they are? That’s how warm you are inside
and I nod, think about condoms, tissues,
all the things that contain us but cannot.
originally published in Paterson Literary Review
The white sky presses a gauze pad
over my vein as the needle slips out.
The woman who draws from me smiles, always
remembers me. No matter how skinny I might get.
No matter how dark the circles under my eyes,
she remembers me and how easy my veins are,
so visible, so thick, she doesn’t even have to tie my arm,
but she does, and takes the smaller vein
the bigger one too easy. I don’t tell her
the best to take my blood was a different woman
who used to draw blood from animals,
part the fur, find their blue tap and drain.
She lets me play with my filled tubes. Can you feel
how warm they are? That’s how warm you are inside
and I nod, think about condoms, tissues,
all the things that contain us but cannot.
originally published in Paterson Literary Review
