First Blood: A Sestina

There was a time when the girl

never thought about the colour blue, or blood,

could be amused by the flicking of a lit match,

the delicate shiver of a spider orchid;

summer holidays stretched out, days dropping time

like a missed knitting stitch.

But her body was not hers, a stitch

of animal, a pinch of dirt, a girl

is made of words plus liquid minus time

and what she does not have; blood,

defines her. Like an orchid

about to bloom she unfurls, unlit match

between her teeth, nobody to match

her unkissed lips, until the stitch

is pulled and the thread of the cloth orchid

undoes, just enough to reveal the gone girl.

Nobody told her there would be so much blood!

Her mother had tried to mend the old time

ways, when girls were never told in time

about periods, as if knowledge alone could match

an image of her baba scrubbing the blood

out of torn rags, her hair greasy, a stitch

unwashed once every month. Cold water, girls

know, washes out blood, and orchids

should be kept indoors and warm, orchids

are to be protected from a cold breeze. In time

the blue liquid in the TV ads for girl-

products made sense, red stains to mismatch

the pastel spots on her skirt enough to stitch

shame to her chest. Blood

is not to be seen — except the blood

of war or violence. Blood ‘n Bone drinks the orchid,

the fetor forcing the girl to sprint until a stitch

bites her side and the breath of time

stabs; finding a way to strike the match

of bloom and decay in the body of a girl.

She came to see a stitch in time

could not repair the stain of first blood, spider orchids 

are too delicate to touch, and nothing can hold a match to a bleeding girl.