I watched her taking me in, her body filling and pulsing on me as she drew the blood away for her more fertile self. I thought– for once I won't crush her, smearing the blood across my bicep like a warrior of the garden. Instead, I sat with that nagging tickle and waited to see what happened when she'd had enough of me. How she'd leave. Her body became still before she lifted her prick and she pushed away from me, noticeably heavier. Lonely and relieved. When the belated armor of welt began to form I etched a cross into my skin with my thumb nail the way children do to stop the itch. A small prayer that my body can mean something.
Amanda Stopa Goldstein is a poet and short fiction writer. Her work has been recently published or is forthcoming in Cherry Tree, Two Thirds North, and Epiphany.