Bloodline

Consider its extravagant fertility! How
dependably it breeds itself in the marrow
to fill again what drains away, the rivers of bright
platelets singing in their arterial dark

until a simple incursion, some sharp sever.
A jag. An abrupt disclosure as our secret fluid
spills against its will—whether a startle or a slow
seepage, a prompt to remember our fragility.

When a bold splash on a lintel in Egypt signaled
safety, a lifeguard against the death angel, we didn’t
have to die; it was only a lamb, and a quick throat cut
that flooded us into another life.