The Bleeder

      by Nadine Lockhart



Pools of blood		cold, not clotting.
I could see	    a man meant for a fall.
“Meant”—he says, he doesn’t believe in.

He tears me—sees the red, the bleeding 
stops before he removes his protection. 
I can do what he can’t—some medication

turns him         hemophiliac. A cut, ulcer, 
fatal?	    He showers, calls his therapist, 
			      orders coffee. 

                  I’m a living cliché: lying in bed, 
                      cool light plays on the ceiling. 

He’s popping Xanax, hunched up, crying.
If this were a movie, he says. Well, I say,
it isn’t.