‘This Is Not My Time to Bleed’ by Angela Carr

That night we fuck and I wake bleeding.
My fingers probe the sudden slick, emerge iron-tanged,
telltale dark: This is not my time to bleed,

I think, blink to the bathroom, rust-fingered
smudge on the door handle, the light-switch.
I squat in the cold, the bare bulb’s hard light,

puzzle red clots on perforated squares:
mirrored smears ring my thighs, jewel-bright
fronds trace the seat, gash the porcelain bowl.

When I’ve cleaned myself, I slip back into the room,
whisper your name. I’m bleeding, I say.
You stir, grunt, turn over. I shiver by the bed,

watch the knuckles of your spine rise and fall
with your breathing, the spotted trail across
the bedsheet already darkening, brown.

From issue #6: spring/summer 2018

About the Author
Angela Carr lives in Dublin and is published in Prelude, Mslexia and Abridged. In 2016, she was placed/shortlisted in the Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award, The London Magazine and Oxford Brookes international poetry competitions and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.