For four months I lived

with three different strangers’

​

blood in me. All one night

I watched three people drip into my arm.

​

I didn’t name them. Then I did: Owen, Gloria,

Oliver. I got to know them

​

so well we could communicate.

Their blood plowed through me.

​

Now I forget them all, but the signs

are coming back—motion sickness on the bus,

​

dizziness climbing out of the pool. I check them off

like a doctor’s list, think,

​

My hemoglobin’s probably at 9, now 8.

I take iron for control and think every time

​

about letting my count go back

down, about letting myself come in

​

and out of the world. Sometimes

I want to remember the people whose blood

​

I shared, but my body didn’t know it was borrowing,

didn’t think of ownership. It drank and drank.