bloodbath

we took a trip to the blood pools & stripped to skin
bony bodies breaststroking through the tepid tides
under all that red sight & sound smudge & smear
until we come up for air hacking & spluttering out
something thicker than water. we young & willowy
creatures swimming among our own lifeblood
put pallid tyrants with long black tresses to shame.
they who saw enough of the world to want it forever
to freeze in time to grow rosy with buckets of blood
& we young & unthinking going for a quick swim
brisk & bracing coating our outsides with insides
from a maiden who sees nearly the same reflection
in the morning mirror. at the blood pools we are all
cannibals caping and cantering and careening along
or else leeches. the pile of soiled towels grows an
embankment of rust and pink and fluffy white at the
edge of that exsanguination elysium. eerie perhaps.
but it could be worse—the tide pool was once a tub
carved from the finest girl-ivory with iron claw feet.
a tub only holds two but the pool just grows & grows

By a a khaliq