Blood Blossoms

Feb 3 2015

Blood blossoms
on my finger-tip
and quickly spreads.
As if a luscious flower, fuchsia red
had burst into bloom
at once.

I watch
as if distanced, detached
the disembodied digit, and slightly cupped hand,
immersed
in primary colour
running down.

As if the serrated edge
of a well-sharpened knife
could imperceptibly cut,
painless
until I saw, processed, connected
cause and effect.
Shocking
how much blood we contain
how intensely red it is.
As a pool furiously spreads
on the white kitchen floor.

My chest quivers
with each beat of the heart,
the cut pumping, pulsing
spurting out.
Until the blood thickens, vessels constrict
and it dampens down
to a dull rhythmic throb.

And now
finger bandaged, floor swabbed
I keep thinking back
to the absence of pain, the sense of detachment.
That brief instant
I was master of Zen
despite myself.

When nothing mattered
but that brilliant flower
billowing bright.
Its glistening red

so elemental.
The breath-taking speed
a man bleeds-out.

When I cut my finger tip, there was a brilliance to the redness of fresh blood, a mesmerizing quality to its speed, that brought to mind words like bloom and blossom, burst and billow. And we've all experienced that odd trick of mind, as if pain wouldn't exist unless we noticed, and processed, and then intended it. We feel nothing when we're actually cut, only after we see the blood. And even then, only once we've gathered our thoughts and made sense of things: the apotheosis of the separation of body and mind; the serene detachment a Zen master seeks. I think of Wily Coyote, who would still be suspended mid-air if he hadn't looked down!

There are lots of lines I'm pleased with in this poem. And probably much better than this one. But I keep coming back to it as really nailing something. Perhaps it's the plain language that appeals. Shocking/ how much blood we contain/ how intensely red it is. And the floor just had to be a white: the red is even redder, blooming against the white.

Disembodied -- in the 2nd stanza -- may be problematical. I was trying to convey the idea of looking at a body part as if it belonged to somebody else. So I hope the word it isn't taken literally: that is, as if I had amputated the entire finger (with a bread knife??!!) I tried substituting "hypothetical" and "theoretical", but neither sounded as well. As always, I'm a sucker for alliteration!