Blood

The wrench slips and my cold hand hits

The cast steel engine with all the force

I could muster to strain at the rusty bolt,

A natural hazard of the chore.

I watch the rich crimson blood,

Thick and beautiful in the bright winter sun,

Seep from my shattered knuckle

To cool and dim on the frozen ground.

And I think of how I kill my love for her:

It too seeps out of me, cast aside in drop

Just as the blood from my ruined hand drips

And splatters, dark and dead, on the absorbing dirt.

What waste; what shame; but I will not let it hurt

As I drain, each day more, the life from love

Anymore than I will acknowledge my torn hand's sting.

Both will heal with time, though both will scar.