blood before water

the wooden-walled grocery store with the fresh fruit & the quiet people is our prelude. everything is hush-hush like the soul-searchers in the church choir. I'm caressing a box of tampons like the second coming. it was you, you know. you turned the monotony & sing-song into the throbbing, the blood thick and heavy on my legs. I hear the old man cough outside this unisex bathroom and think of crystals under the Helen riverbank. it wouldn't have happened without you. push cotton-rock up like the baby lamb on the sacrifical stone. the waters will be coarse and clean against this, this sin building heart. it hurts, kills me like this, but your smile will shine against the blue sky, the riverrocks cutting the currents below. I stand, stretch out the slugs in my uterus. nothing like the sacrifice of me, for you.