{"id":25442,"date":"2016-08-13T22:17:31","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T02:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=25442"},"modified":"2016-08-13T22:17:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T02:17:31","slug":"bloodletting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/bloodletting\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloodletting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bloodletting<\/p>\n<p>I ladle the<br \/>\nsomber eyes of saskatoons,<br \/>\nthe pucker of summer raspberry<br \/>\n in the blistered lattice of my palms.<br \/>\nRotten teeth of sunrise<br \/>\nswallowing poplars like dancing cotton candy.<br \/>\nPommels of dark trunks growl under their breath<br \/>\nalong the cherry hallways, splashing leaves<br \/>\nin hurled gusts.<br \/>\nA stained purple on my hands,<br \/>\nsweat-laced in the shine<br \/>\nof blackberry taste buds,<br \/>\nsheltered thorn &amp; the burnt bitter<br \/>\nthe juice mingled in slight thumb bleed<br \/>\nsizzles steel on my lips.<\/p>\n<p>I think of Northport as a tightness<br \/>\nin my eyes, how the lake tapers<br \/>\ninto itself on the drive south, home,<br \/>\na brightness intensified by my smallness<br \/>\nin open sky. I pluck the rain from its<br \/>\nfurrowed brow &amp; am drenched by<br \/>\nits rage &amp; prayer. This year<br \/>\nwe have to cut back the plum trees&#8217;<br \/>\nlanky branches, uproot Russian olives<br \/>\nbefore their shallow zeal crowds<br \/>\nthe mountain ash. <\/p>\n<p>A father&#8217;s limbs go sullen, dejected,<br \/>\ntomatoes along the barn where concussion blood<br \/>\nsprinkled the soil two years ago now.<br \/>\nGlasses grow wider, eyes narrow &amp; dimmer.<br \/>\nI clutch sodden wood chips under toe<br \/>\nwhere wild turkey have clawed at the garden.<br \/>\nThis could be my last year to touch<br \/>\nwith nervous fingers the dewdrop coals<br \/>\nof cherries. While I haunt myself<br \/>\nin a place never to be mine,<br \/>\nI hope to return, with the<br \/>\nrise &amp; fall of a season&#8217;s empire<br \/>\nas if I were just blinking. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bloodletting I ladle the somber eyes of saskatoons, the pucker of summer raspberry in the blistered lattice of my palms. Rotten teeth of sunrise swallowing poplars like dancing cotton candy. Pommels of dark trunks growl under their breath along the cherry hallways, splashing leaves in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":717,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/717"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25445,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25442\/revisions\/25445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}