BLOOD MESSAGE

I’m your blood 

I come from your mother, through your placenta, your umbilical cord 

I’m coming out of your knees when you fall 

I’m mixing with dirt on the sidewalk 

I’m in the empty socket in your mouth where a tooth used to be 

I’m the first brown streak in your underwear 

I’m filling your diva cup, getting dumped into a hole high in the Sierra Nevadas 

I’m pulsing in your brain, giving you a headache 

I’m leaving tracks through the house from a stubbed toe 

I’m gushing out after your baby 

I’m staining your mattress 

You’re washing me down the drain