Bloodline

Consider its extravagant fertility! How
dependably it breeds itself in the marrow
to fill again what drains away, the rivers of bright
platelets singing in their arterial dark

until a simple incursion, some sharp sever.
A jag. An abrupt disclosure as our secret fluid
spills against its will—whether a startle or a slow
seepage, a prompt to remember our fragility.

When a bold splash on a lintel in Egypt signaled
safety, a lifeguard against the death angel, we didn’t
have to die; it was only a lamb, and a quick throat cut
that flooded us into another life.

“His blood be upon us” echoes in that old yell of
rejection. We can yield instead to be
washed in grace, the scandal of mercy
acting as God’s unlikely laundry.

Today the cup calls us to the altar rail, transfuses us
as we drink deep, a stain that blots old grimes
and dyes us with itself.