Bloodletting

“Blood Cells” by Andrew Mason

POETRY

by Summer Mohrmann

I traveled 6000 miles

across land and sea

to

see you,

but it was

Not enough.

There are no planes

that fly four years

through time

through snow filled

Clouds

and Jordanian winters.

Instead I find myself

here

with the women left behind.

Instead

I am bleeding thick,

red

blood while I

wait to see the plot of land

where you sleep.

I bleed for the four of us:

my blood

Is usually dark— old— my

body begrudgingly lets it go.

It has claw marks.

But here it is: red and new

a wound.

Like the thick tears I’ve spent four years shedding

for you.

These women have bad blood. It is old like mine.

The moon is full and round and the city is sand in its glow:

white and shimmering

and pure

and I am

not.

In our house I try to weave the threads that unfurled when you died;

I coax weft and warp of

family

attempting to rebuild the

tapestry that tore, like the earth,

for your box.

Yet all I can do is bleed. It is fresh and thick and torrential and I feel faint.

A firecracker in the dark;

I bleed for five.

I cried so much this year I

thought my eyes

would turn inside out.

When I

visited

your grave,

the djinn told me

“Go back” (Upon threat of bodily harm, I gathered,

when the car door hit my forehead—

smack!)

Little did they know,

going back is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.

Yesterday I saw it for the first time and

the letters were already peeling.

the door

hit me

in the head

and I spilled blood on your

mausoleum.

God, you would have hated that.

You would hate this but

I am

bleeding all over

and the thirsty sand

licks it clean.