Blood Sonnets

The droplets of blood have welled again-- bursts of veined pink blossoms suspended invisibly against necessarily porcelain white-- for this sight a sigh is permissible, the aesthetic moment an oasis amidst the usual anticipation, then gore. This is assurance that only I dwell here, that 'we' still means two of us, not three, that your ample palm cradling my belly as if it were a vessel contents precious, is instead prizing of the whole, of only myself, not what I carry within. But watching the webbing of red spread and change I want to freeze the beauty and claim it. Waking I feel the pooling above my pelvis, an internal puddling of blood, a vaguely nauseating fullness, reason to move slowly, fearing waves, splashing--though not to the sheets this morning. As if living a war since childhood I have learned tricks against my own bloody stains: a bar of white soap and my own spit the mixture rubbed into the cloth pushing out globules of life-stained mucus red of a fresh wound, baby shit brown, and wet charcoal black; the compound reeking of too-natural salt, of our very pulse made gruesome only in parting from the whole.