Springtime and a Tourniquet
© Mary ElizaBeth Peters, April 2010
I’m trying to write a poem
about each season. Four
simple poems: Fall; winter;
spring; summer. I am
bored: I miss my feelings.
Today my lungs were bleeding
and they asked me to save it –
the blood – in a pink plastic cup.
I abided, disgustingly, with their
murderous request, and waited
in my room: the crime scene.
Now I’m toying with writing a poem
about four bloody seasons but I
keep getting distracted thinking
Four Bloody Seasons would make
a good horror movie or at least a
very bad hotel: crime scenes abound.
“Maybe if we just sit here real still
for a hour or so, it’ll clot,” she says.
“Maybe if we run around all crazy
and bash into a wall, we’ll bleed,” I
think. Many possibilities for passing
the time: bleeding; clotting; writing.
Old broken lungs, you act like its too
much to ask not to blood-flood up every
month or so. What are your plans? I’d
like a calendar or at least an email now
and again. There are toxins coming down
the line to you and special air speeding
down the pipe. It is raining and it is
springtime now that it is not winter,
anymore: You always liked the warmth.
