Blood | Michelle McEwen

First published in Best New Poets, 2007

Blood

There is always a leader amongst them—

the girl-cousins.  She is the one who is allowed

to sit at the table with the aunts-mothers-wives—

trusted with the big knife when it comes time

to slice the watermelon. She is the one

who bleeds first.  The one the aunts talk

about in smile-heavy whispers: they say

she will be knocked-up before she knows it,

before that chapter is even gotten ‘round

to in health class.  It is she who makes

her boy-cousins wish blood wasn’t as thick

as all that.

In vacation photos, she smiles the hardest—

hands on hips, head to one side, hair hanging;

hickies trophy-shiny in the sun. She is the one

who makes out with the local kid before

the trip ends. And when she promises to keep

in touch, you can almost see the bolding-&-italicizing

of her "I will"s and “I swear”s.

The aunts try not to smile when they say

that girl is going to mess around and get

killed by some man one of these days. She is

the one who notices, first, the fresh blood

staining your bikini bottom. Taking you by the hand,

she drags you out from the water, leads you

to the ladies' room as though you are not the same

age as her, as though she is already somebody's

mother.