On My Walk By the Blood Bank by McCaela Prentice

I think of collapsed veins, of flumes and running water –

the redwoods funneled down some nightmare channel,

corpses carried miles from their ghost; empty saw mills 

and how the dust settles so fine.  I do not know my blood type –

the arteries or artifice that carry me through self.

I cannot wrap my arms around the base of a sequoia- 

around the man when he tells me it took them 

twelve hours to retrieve the body. I do not pretend

to know the swallows of that grief- do not dwell on a future

where it will swallow me. I see the bags stacked red and 

think of sap – think of Ichor and how viscous are our losses.

McCaela Prentice is living and writing in Astoria, NY.  Her poetry has appeared in Ghost City Review, Hobart, and Perhappened Magazine. Her chapbook JUNK DRAWER HEART was published by Invisible Hand Press in 2020. She was also an honorable mention for the Small Orange Journal Emerging Woman Poet Honor.