The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

We are eleven and our little girl bodies

Are side by side on the levee, touching

Where we lie in the itchy summer grass.

The yellow church dress sticks to my back

And I watch your eyes as you listen

To my whispered instructions, "Let her bite.

Hold your breath and she'll get stuck there,

Not able to pull out." Your saucer-sized eyes

Fix on the mosquito as her abdomen fills

And distends with your blood, the sun shining

Pink through the thinning membrane.

Sweat beads along your lip and you ask,"Why?"

I cannot say that I want to see insect fear,

That I need to watch your blood fill her

Plump as a berry, pregnant with your life

And weighed down by her greed.

I don't yet have the words to explain the thrum

In my teeth and the way your skin smells

Softly of Dove soap and a sharper scent

That makes me lean closer and whisper

About how cool it will be. I eye the sated

Creature and pant, "Now!" You hold your breath,

And for a moment, I see her struggle to withdraw;

I can hardly believe the discovery I have made,

But then, heavy with drink, the mosquito lifts

Into the air, a fraction above your wrist

Where a small welt has already begun to rise.

A swift slap sends blood across my palm.

Your cry is small and stifled, like a kitten's.

I push the bug bits away with the stem of

A wish flower. I write my name in the blood

And press my palm to your little wound.

I think how beautiful you look with your

Hair damp, ringlets sticking to your cheeks, eyes

The color of cornflowers on my mother's dishes.

When I ask what you're thinking, you say,

"I'm a little afraid of you." A new thrill flows through

Me, through my little girl body, and I know this is

Good. I smile and lift the wish flower between us.

I watch you close your eyes. I do the same,

And we both blow our daffodil wish toward the river

That rushes by, ancient and free, singing its

Ever pulsing song along the bend of its crescent

Path and I hum along, knowing the words will come.

I found you at the bottom of my glass

In the last drop of my well aged despair

And something inside of me let go.

Something vital died in near silence,

Just a soft clink of my ring

And the breaking of glass

Far away from where I now stand.



No cartographer could ever map

The distances radiating from here

To all the essential points of my life,

The smiling, the gasping, and the crying out.

Birth, kiss, prayer, a rose dropped into a hole,

And every time you poured wine,

Filled my glass, and held me through the night.