When she asks which arm, I point
to my right, but she takes my left, turns it
back and forth in the light, tells me I have
many strong veins, so that’s where
she sticks me. I clench both fists
even though I only have to tighten one,
and to take my mind off the needle
she asks me what I do, so I tell her poetry,
and she says she loves poetry, her bleach-tipped
hair blending with the fluorescent light
behind her head. She asks me to recite
something, anything, to pass the blood time,
and she’s on the second vial at this point,
but I barely make it to the third stanza
of “Ode to a Nightingale” before forgetting
the rest, so I say sorry. She asks if
she can recite something she wrote, her eyes closing
as she begins, which makes me nervous
for several reasons, and then she goes
and goes on at a lightening pace, something
and something about love and it not working
out, it’s beautiful, and we are on the fourth vial
now, one of her hands on the half-full
crimson tube and the other waving in the air,
and I have never felt so much pain and pleasure
at the same time, listening to her pummel out
her story of falling into and out of love,
and when she finishes speaking her poem
into the air and all is silent again, I want to clap;
but one of my arms still has a needle inside it,
and the other is still clenched in a cold sweat.
