When
They Burn the BloodWhen
They Burn the Blood
When they burn the blood,
my mind knows people have died
or survived the knife
in a gleaming white setting
with candy stripers
and sympathy cards.
I tell my mind
to think of visiting hours
and plump new babies.
I tell my mind,
but it does not hear.
How could it when the hellish tattoo
throbs on my arm
and the cloying sickness hangs in the air
and I see again my pitiful bundle
wrapped in rags, her cold, waxen face
making no demands.
When they burn the blood.
©Katherine M. Searle
searlek@mail.davenport.k12.ia.us
