Self-Portrait with Zoloft and Fruit
       

Today       slicing sourdough       my finger beaded with blood
Once I cut my palm so deep       the wound was blood

less       & now I'm back       in the grove       beyond the fence
memories flapping hard in my chest       thieving blood

oranges       filling my backpack
I used to come here at night       hungry       hot blooded

needing to still my hands       I used to run to escape
my breath       I have learned the sound of a cow's cry       oxblood

smeared on the floor       across the road from the pasture
& yes       I know it well       blood

staining my sheets       staining the dressings a nurse pressed
to my wrists       All those nights in the grove       blood

shot eyes       hair turning to smoke       & I am just a forest
burning long & red       or maybe a blood

bath       I would rather be water       guiltless       gleaming
That time the farmer heard me cough       released his blood

hounds       how I caught my arm on the barbed wire
a gash spreading fast       the familiar sensation of blood

streaming down       the taste of fruit
still on my tongue       The horizon slivered with a blood

red sun       Someone might call that light hope

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from The Cincinnati Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission