What Thickens

She tried the left arm first — Loss,

she said, or Sorry, and switched

to the right, the tourniquet tightening

like a question I couldn't refuse.

The second needle found it. I watched

the vial fill — not red, not there,

but dark as something pulled from underground,

almost black beneath the fluorescent glare.

My father's blood thickens too fast. That's what they said —

too eager, was the word the doctor chose,

as though his blood were desperate, overfed

on clotting, rushing every wound to close.

I carry half of that. Half of whatever fails

in him is moving through this quiet vein

the phlebotomist found on her second pass, the trails

of inheritance you only see through pain

or glass. She labeled it. My surname faced

the light — the same four syllables he gave

me, printed on a tube of what I've traced

back to his body. What I didn't save

or choose. She pressed a cotton square and said

hold here, and I held what I could.

The vial stood upright in its little rack,

dark, labeled, not quite his,

not quite my own. Just blood

that knows a thing my mind keeps pushing back.