Lord, bless these days that start with blood.

Bless extra acetaminophen and her liver
for processing it. Bless her mother
and hers for imparting their genetics.

Bless the pretty white skirt she used
to love so much. Bless the little blue
heating pad that soothed her thirteen years.

They don’t last long anymore, so please
bless her new one. Bless boxes and boxes
of tampons and pads. Bless ruined underwear.

Bless stretchy pants. Bless the stupid,
immoral pink tax. Bless nurses and techs,
even the mean ones. Bless the sterilized

gels, grainy pics and sticks defining
her appointments. Bless radiologists
too, though she never gets to see them.

You can even bless her former doctors
who said this was normal. Blessings
to anemia and compounding fatigue.

Blessings to estrogen for making her
grow things. Bless another year, another
differential diagnosis. Bless cysts and

polyps and endometriosis. Bless the next
surgery to fix the last surgery. Bless you,
who also took a scalpel to the side.

Bless the bleeding woman bleeding
issues of blood. Bless her, bleeding
Lord, bless me. Bless me.