It starts with a mouthful of blood
gums swollen and sore
platelet count too low for her body
to form a clot. They insert a picc line
in her chest, direct access to bright
blue veins like wires that have forgotten
how to spark. Chemical conflations
travel through tubes. Azacitidine. Decadrol.
Vincristine. Alphabet soup pumping
through PVC. Bruises blossom on thighs,
on back, on fingertips. They siphon out
tainted blood —scrape her bones free
of rotten marrow— inject someone else’s
stem cells to take its place.
She wants to scream until her face
is blue as her mottled skin but her lungs
are as infected as her blood, so she tucks
her rage under a rib, promises to release it
once she reaches open air.