Universal Recipient

A papercut from a grocery store receipt

beaded up dark and round on my thumb.

It’s a heavy, metallic kind of heat

that makes the rest of the hand go numb.

I watched the drop hold its shape for a second,

a perfect, deep crimson O.

It’s a biological debt that must be reckoned,

a secret that only the needles know.

I remember the bag at the clinic,

how it filled with a rhythmic, slow weight.

I’m a quiet, biological cynic

carrying a gallon of common fate.