Giving Blood
In the elementary school gymnasium
a woman asks me if I’ve had sex in the last five years
with anyone from Cameroon
and it’s the most surprising question
I’ve been asked in an elementary school
since the one about the solar system I nailed in third grade
to Miss Grant’s astonishment, planets lining up for me
in proper orbit, spinning past on cue like beauty pageant queens.
Now, Pluto’s not a planet anymore, demoted to a dwarf
for disobeying rules of mass and orbit
and HIV’s been with us thirty years
so I think of brilliant Joel and James and Skip and Meg
all gone, among my early losses.
I spin a globe inside my head, try to pinpoint Cameroon.
Where is it? Did we call it something else in school?
Did they even teach us African countries?
The woman’s looking at me sharply.
I’ve hesitated and asked questions.
She clearly disapproves of this. I’m suspect now.
She’s going to check a box and throw away my blood.
I shake my head: no. No, I haven’t had sex
in the last five years with anyone from Cameroon
so I’m allowed to climb up on the table,
close my eyes and give my blood,
eat my cookie, drink my juice,
leave with a bright red sticker on my heart.
I drive home with open windows
waving up at Joel, James, Skip, Meg, Pluto,
watch the bright bruise on my arm bloom like a galaxy
as I take down the atlas of the world.
We call it Cameroon. We always have.
Not Quite Spring
Rain moves over the farmhouse
speaks first language
to roof slates
and rafters I sleep beneath
and everywhere this morning
water’s utterance
gluts each runnel
each gully and rill
from meadow to creek. Run-off
scours the dump
for fresh debris, unearths
a rubber boot, a toddler’s rusted folding chair
sends them down the steep-sided
wash with its boundless spew
of glass shards, bent cans, picture
tubes, a sunken toilet tank.
I swear I’ll hire men some day
bring in trucks. I’ll clean it at the source.
Till then, there’s consolation
in sound and excess
how underneath
the plash and gush down ditches
water goes about its quiet business
of ticking through dark leaves
unclicking locks in the bloodroot and privet,
skunk cabbage and cress
which, in less than a week
will cover all.
