Bloodless

It is common in the case of anemics
to develop Pica and eat any number
of strange objects. Coal, hair, metal
wax and dirt. I could never imagine
feeling that familiar weakness
and consuming nails and bolts.
Washers filling the void in my belly,
till my stomach jingled like a change purse.

But when I peel the heart shaped beets,
their red dye, reflective and pooling beneath,
and I eat the raw slices,
they taste like the earth that they were born from.
And I know what the others were trying to devour.

It is the fortification of the self.
Each piece a charm against the flaw in my blood
that grows up from my liver,
until it hits the follicles and I?m left pulling
a thousand tiny hairs from the bath drain,
and the comb, and the rugs of my house, and the pillow where I sleep.
As if my body laments the innate disconnection
in my mode of consumptive urban living
and the brick and mortar worlds and shells I?ve constructed
and then expresses it's sorrow by rejecting a thousand slivers of me.
Screaming as they fall, each piece reminds
that such surroundings are no path to real safety.
You must be brave enough
to swallow all the earth yourself
and stand to be shaped
by the wind and by the rain.

...
Christa Pagliei