Lest We Forget (blood) - Esperanza Spalding

Blood is breathing

Fully submerged cells even

In denser places like thighs or nails or secret stomach aches

Blood is humming us

A constant tone accompanying the incessant muscling

Pumping us in out, in out, in out, in out, in out, in out

The vowel of self

Blood is steadying

Lunged pendulums in threads of muted currents

Ferrying air around and round it’s labyrinthian orbit

Through the fleshy underside of this

Our atmospheric sea

Blood is ignited engine here at the core of all creation

With your key to our mystery’s spark

Bursting just beneath the surface

Pushing time lapse blooms of newly aired blood outward

While inward bound

To central brain and each extremity

As different as they are all alike

One fauna all inhaling

All flora’s breath

Lest we forget

Look, this leaf

Veins patterned by fractal giving

Oxygen you carry now within

A cell of blood threaded in

All parts of this body we too will grow to give and be

Blood is

Pulsing vast beyond our vein tips…