What the Blood Does
for Amelia
What the blood does is like God to me,
its mysteriousness, I mean, like its color,
difficult to name, not like anything but
itself. No fruit is just that hue, no flower.
Liquid jewel filling the vial, your blue eyes
opening, closing, lashes black against
your pale skin. What they do to you
is simple, specific: a two-inch incision
under your navel allows the appendix
to be removed, the infection cleaned out,
and then you’ll heal. How it got there
is less clear—sometimes we never know,
the surgeons say. For seven days we wait,
walk in and out of the hospital atrium
amid child after child with other ailments,
some explainable, some incomprehensible.
The sad-eyed parents share tired smiles, or don’t.
Our last day there, they take your blood again.
I hold your hand, or rather, hold it down,
whisper my story in your tiny ear:
Once, long ago, there was a house on a hill
and a garden. The grandmothers gathered
the apples, cut them to pieces, simmered them
all afternoon to sauce. I breathed the scent
and wandered to the bank, looked down
at the lake, and I dreamed of you.
When the sun set the water was red.
(first published in Hayden’s Ferry Review)
