Blood ghazal When I first moved to France, pride and hope in my blood, I swore I would pluck up the courage to give blood. But born at the end of the mad-cow disease years I have been blacklisted – France does not want my blood. I regret that I might have backed out anyway: as my friends will tell you, I am not good with blood. The last time that a nurse drew my blood out of me for testing, I fainted. Oh, that tube of my blood. From me it had just come, in me it had just been: I knew in a moment why some baulk at their blood. It was different each month; it was meant to flow then, I was told, and I would be intrigued by my blood. When it crept from a wound, from a fault, my mistake, was when I felt guilty, mocked and blamed by my blood. I never discovered my blood type – I want to; it would calm me to know that bit more of my blood. I have to remember, my blood is no stranger: in my own bone garden blossomed flowers of blood. The thing is that mainly, they grow inside only and I lose my technique catching petals of blood.
GASP is an anthology by the New North Poets: Jasmine Chatfield, Michael Brown, Elizabeth Gibson, Maria Isakova Bennett and Rosa Walling-Wefe...
Published on Oct 4, 2018
GASP is an anthology by the New North Poets: Jasmine Chatfield, Michael Brown, Elizabeth Gibson, Maria Isakova Bennett and Rosa Walling-Wefe...