veins

april 11, 2009

 
The ads say generosity is in your blood,
and you have more of it than you need,
so you lie back on the padded couch,
let the needle push into your arm,
watch the red flow out, warm in vinyl sheathing,
liquid life passing through your chilling fingers.

There is power in these veins.
This warmth is the heat of conflict;
sometimes you burn so hot with it
your veins should catch fire.
Cells teeming against each other,
so much history and tension
sardine-packed into these few liters
of tangled, sinuous flow.

In the dark, narrow corridors,
my ancestors mutter to each other under the low arches,
whispering vulgarities about their neighbors,
pretending the neighbors can't hear.
Across the narrow halls of chromosomes,
the Christians and the Jews look sidelong at each other,
mistrusting, disowning their children
who dared to marry outside the faith.

Solid midwestern farmers tense uneasily at the news
of German surnames murdering German surnames;
back home, branches of the family tree flare up and die.
Three generations of divorce —
my grandparents sit beside each other in awkward reunion,
waiting for this eternal moment to end.
The walls bow outward in the tension,
but nothing stops the flow.

The centrifuge spins counter-clockwise, banishing,
filtering out the energetic turmoil of the red cells,
the long memories of the white,
the dark rich tangle of genetic heritage,
pouring them back into my veins
in all their solemn confusion.
Leaving only the anucleate children,
small and bland, pure and useful,
their golden ichor filling out the bag,
an anonymous gift for someone I will never meet.

Drink fluids. Don't smoke for half an hour.
Keep the bandage on. Keep the teeming inside you.
Call us if you experience any problems.
No problems — I have always lived like this.
The power and the chaos, I keep;
I hear them singing in my ears as I walk away.