With never a thought for the shadow of corrosion
nor the fertile breeding ground
of eel slime and rabbit guts,
we took adventure’s companion:
the pocket-knife,
and sliced our thumbs.
A fragment of pain
much less than its apprehension;
to watch
the rubyed jewel of life
swell
then run to kiss the earth with salty gravity.
Pressing our thumbs together,
blood into blood,
we made a symbol of our bond.

This was a time
when blood was blood
and not more virulent
than rats in Renaissance Europe.
When “Magic” Johnson was a messiah.
When dentists and doctors probed with impunity.
Before plasma was a Trojan Horse for haemophiliacs.

Now
even the mosquito’s drone assails our mortality
yet we are loath
to shipwreck its cargo of strange blood.
The body once a temple
now a fortress.
But what is to be our vigilance
when the enemy lies within?