As If Led
I
Spilled blood dies
long before it dries.
With no breath
to flow toward it’s death
comes on fast.
Each cell breathes its’ last
and all stop
as life leaves each drop.
I forget
that what’s now just wet
was once warm;
this splat had a form–
a branched view
of all it flowed through,
blue then red,
circling as if led
by a song
’til something all wrong
slacks the stream.
What leaves then like steam
is all one:
heat, shape, direction.
II
Split in three,
blood’s integrity
eludes us.
More is dangerous
to our lives
than glass shards or knives,
but damage
is harder to gauge.
Shapeless form,
heat that doesn’t warm,
red and blue
circles are a few
of what we
bleed through quietly,
wondering at
the simple fact that
lives are spilled
long before they’re killed.
© 2009 Edmund Pickett
(This poem may be copied or forwarded as long as
you retain the copyright notice and author’s name)
Tags: As If Led, edmund pickett, poem