Bloodmeal
Sometimes I let the mosquito do her thing –
Watch her little body fat with blood and ignore
The itch of her mouthparts parting her chosen
Point of skin. My mammal heart
Pumps iron to bulge her bugbelly quickly –
In both our interests – she seems to take
So little for satisfaction that it feels
Churlish to refuse. For me it’s easy: my
Mosquitos are clean so far my fluid-swap welts
Fade fast I’m lucky and I like pain.
I think about my blood transmuted
To eggs, then larva, then winged legions.
I think it when I sip, like a hummingbird germophobe,
Christ’s blood from the chalice. I think it
When I bleed between my legs.
*
Kaitlyn Spees is a Bay Area poet and technician in a genetics lab. Her work has appeared in Rattle Magazine’s Poets Respond and The Herd Literary Newsletter.
