b a r b a r a  f l e t c h e r: other poems


Bloodletting

And if I sit here long enough
listening to the veins in your voice
throbbing enough
you know that I will begin to poke
the necessary holes in you:
to siphon your anguish
to bleed you of your madness.

You know that I will needle you
to allow the pulsing sticky fountain
of strained utterances
to spew forth, to arc and spatter at my feet
as you slowly feel the pressure draining,
deflating

And you will leave me dripping,
stained and stinking of stale blood and confessions
a bloody monument to your misery.