Blood
Is a primordial fluid
Incarnate forms and their rudimentary systems
Carrying hemocyanin and hæmolymph
To the tissues of cells not yet ready to receive
The ambrosia
The memory of time
Tasting of iron
This human blood
Even if poisoned
Or dialyzed
Or addled with drugs
It is the only thing in this form I have known longer than the quarter century I have spent here
Long before everything,
before the warmth of an anxious womb
a waning moon cast forth
On the storm of the century
Of which I was a harbinger
This red liquid filled with memories of cells set to kill
Is the very same fluid that God-fearing men once referred to as Ichor