Red Wheelbarrow Poets
Poem of the Week 8/31/2016
Mark Fogarty
Thin Blooded
I don’t know if I’m thin skinned or not
But there isn’t any doubt I’m thin blooded.
In the hospital once the CNA roused me
As I was lying in a puddle of blood.
I’d slept on the IV works
And enough blood had started out
I thought someone had stabbed me,
Or put a horse’s head in my narrow bed.
The thin blood keeps the clots in place
So they don’t break away like Baltic republics
And steer for your heart, brain or lungs.
I netted two out of three, and it wasn’t good.
No razors on me, I tell the barber.
Be careful if you floss your teeth.
That blood bubble on your hand, beware.
I need to be more thick skinned,
If just to keep the allotted blood in.
Here’s my song on the internet:
I’m thin blooded, check it and see
I’ve got a fever of a hundred and three.
I’ve had a fever every day for three months
As my body wrestles down the invaders.
It’s nothing to sing about, really.
In narrow sleep I dream of Lara, and Zhivago,
Writing poetry with the wolves at the door,
The commies not far behind.
The wolf came to my door, growled a couple of times,
And settled for a bowl of blood.
My God, says the father.
They’ve killed the Czar and his family.
I think of the Czarevich, who bled
At every fall, and his sexy madman monk,
Whose blood was so thick they had to poison,
Shoot and drown him. Son, it doesn’t do
To be thinblooded in this world,
Where night brings the night horses,
The bloody sheets, the empty wells.
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