After Feeding
I don’t know how
you made your way
to me,
if I brushed past
your reaching
as I tried to outrun pain
or if the dogs delivered you
but you found me
more hospitable
and climbed
what must have seemed
a long way
to legs as short
as yours
and nestled finally
into the flesh
across the knot
in my shoulder
worry pulled taut.
By the time
I noticed,
you had burrowed,
only your feeding end engaged
and the rest
completely slack
like my children,
bodies gone limp
back then,
tiny mouths latched
furiously onto my nipple.
Oh, little mark
that did not fade
after my shower,
neither dirt nor a scab
made in service
to my own skin,
I plucked you
clean out
leaving a small wound
where you had opened me.
After, you lay still
for a moment, helpless,
like my babies
used to lie,
milk-stunned,
while I absorbed
the cost of my
generous, liquid life,
my tendency to spill
into each channel
hunger cuts.