band aids and body bags

My friend tells me she touched a body bag today

and I think of how many times I have come just as close

My aversion to blood developed later in life

long after my knees had calloused falling from trees

in our backyard or someone else’s

Remember when I dragged our parents out

to watch me climb?

Last summer I sliced my thumb open

in my kitchen alone

I knew I shouldn’t look but it was like crimson

like everything they say

so I guess there are some things that just aren’t lies

like how I never want to touch a body bag and

how none of us are safe from our own clumsy hands