This new blood has taken root,
my donor replete & replicate.
I felt it first as a flutter in the womb,
then a surge of cells thickening,
an added weight drawing me back
to my own body. The confirmation
is in the whitecoats, their smiles,
their nods in the direction of nurses
who tend to linens & flesh. I confess,
I have admired the bodies of those
who crowd me, the effortless lifting
of a hand, the precision of a step.
I have wanted to rise among them.
Yet, I am become a host, fed upon,
overrun by what aims to heal me.
One whitecoat leans in, whispers.
Embrace the foreign bodies.
Incubate these alien, last-chance lives.
Sandy Longhorn is the author of The Girlhood Book of Prairie Myths and Blood Almanac. She teaches at Pulaski Technical College, where she directs the Big Rock Reading Series, and for the low-residency MFA program at the University of Arkansas Monticello. In addition, she co-edits the online journal, Heron Tree.