When it happened you started crying
And I ran inside to get towels
I got back, and there it was
A red snail trail
down your leg to the shin
You kept saying you were sorry
you had no reason to be

I licked my thumb and wiped away that lightning bolt
Repeating the process
I taste iron

I held the rags to your thigh
I held them tight
And these vermilion minor shapes appeared
On to my hands
An accident you said
I know I replied
There were no band aids
So I held your thigh until it stopped.

Do you remember driving in a six am fog
Hands shaking, teeth shaking
Tequila and whiskey
Working a number on your bowels
Clenched tighter than a noose
This is a matter of life and death
This drive home is something

Your face is greasy
Your hair is greasy
And all you want is grease down your gullet
Some damned thing to soak up this hellacious stew of bile, booze, and blues.
Fried chicken and a biscuit, a miracle.
Shower now. The hot water exorcism
You are pure and nearly whole but wholly clean. But the head is not big enough for the mush inside of it and that pain doesn’t stop.

Now what
Go to work with a pounding head, a sticky mouth, crusty underpants sticking to your loins, the brain filled with fleeting stop motion images of somethings or others
Your whole body covered with a fine layer of filth, the smell of booze sneaking out of the pores of your pores, driving half blind and half dead, that pound, pound, pounding going on in your head damn near like a klaxon.

Survival.