The Constancy of Blood

March 26 2019

The vein in his temple

was a coiled spring.

It throbbed with his flashing eyes

pumped as his jaw clenched.

Like a pressure gauge

it rose with his brain;

the agitation, the fire, the focus.

Before his hair receded, it had been hard to see,

but now, it rivets my gaze.

It seems only a matter of time

before the vein lets go,

its dilated wall

weakening,

a lifetime of wear

taking its toll.

How contingent we are

on the strength of attachment

between adjacent cells,

the thin cement containing us

a sudden single break.
On the constancy of blood,
its peak systolic thrust
the fire-hose rupture. 

More and more

I've been noticing the veins

in this age of rage and bluster;

the call-out culture

of the self-righteously pure.

And the tightly wound veins

in all our greying heads

like markers of mortality.

They are the inconspicuous fly

added to a portrait

as a small memento mori,

a caution of our common fate

a call to keep us humble.

I watch him at rest;

the clouded whites

of his rheumy eyes,

the tiny broken veins

in sun-ravaged skin,

the mottled red

of a turkey-wattled neck.

The angry vessel slackening,

and its kettle-drum pulse

slowing to the gentle brush

of soft melodic jazz.