Lines

Blood in the sink when I spit.
Blood on the morning sheets.
Milk, too. Is that blood
on the baby’s belly button?
Are those mosquito bites
on our older son’s arms
or something worse, something
he could give the baby?
Blood and milk, blood and milk.
How many lines can I write
between the baby’s cries?

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Wendy Wisner is the author of two books of poems, Epicenter and Morph and Bloom. Her essays and poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Spoon River Review, Passages North, Tar River Poetry, Nashville Review, The Washington Post, Full Grown People, The Manifest-Station, Lilith Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in New York with her husband and two kids. Find her at www.wendywisner.com.