poems
Katie Manning
First Blood
Just dawn. The warmth
wakes me. I feel wet
and ashamed
but then I know.
I bolt up, look
down at the cloth.
A dark tide pool
spreads out
from the center—
a red sun rises
where life begins.
Well
Only at night now do I drop
my bucket down in the darkness,
watch as the moon rises
silver in the water, swaying
on the surface like a fallen
feather and growing larger
with each tug on the rope.
I raise my eyes and lift
the liquid to the sky.
A shiver thrills my body
though the night is warm,
and I drink. The coolness
tingles my lips. I pour
the rest over my head
and let it rush
down my breasts.
Blood, dirt, and water stream
down my legs, pool
at my feet. I am clean,
almost. I lower my bucket
again and pull the rope
more gently, slowly
savoring the sight
of each glowing ripple.
I grow tired, dripping
red and silver as I go.
The History of Bleeding
“Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him…”
Matthew 9:20
The first year taught herself to swim
while she drowned
the second denied everything the third
locked herself in a room and refused
to move
the fourth slept all the time
the fifth
dreamed of a baby wrapped
in white cloth
covered in blood
the sixth traced her name in dirt
a hundred times the seventh
baked bread daily
the eighth weaved fishing nets
and despised the smell of fish
the ninth and tenth dug a mass grave
for hope the eleventh
filled it with blood
and the twelfth
stole a piece of God
Working notes
These poems are part of a larger sequence that focuses on the bleeding woman from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This woman's story is brief in each biblical account. She has no name, no age, no family background—we're only told that she has bled for 12 years, that she gets through a crowd to touch Jesus' cloak, and that she is instantly healed. The Markan account also adds that she spent all she had on doctors, and each account shows Jesus calling her "daughter."
After reading several commentaries, I found that many biblical scholars assume that this is an elderly woman with a hemorrhage of some sort. I chose instead to play on the "daughter" label and make the woman in my poems young, as if she began her period in adolescence and never stopped bleeding—the long-awaited event of womanhood arrives to her excitement in "First Blood," but the bleeding soon turns into the curse of "Well" and the 12 long years of "The History of Bleeding."
No matter her age or reason for bleeding, it's clear that this bleeding woman would've been considered unclean, untouchable, by the Jewish legal code of the day. As I imagined a life for her, it became obvious to me that such a woman could not, or perhaps should not, idly accept a religion that ostracized her. I imagined this character seeking out a divine female, perhaps an unknown goddess or the female side of the Hebrew God, as she first celebrates life-giving blood, then performs an ineffective lunar ritual to stop the blood, and then, as we glimpse in the gospel narratives, obtains healing by her own forceful faith.
About the author
Katie Manning is a visiting professor for the 2008-2009 school year at Point Loma Nazarene University, where she teaches writing and literature courses. Her poetry and book reviews have been published or are forthcoming in Ancient Paths, Boxcar Poetry Review, Downgo Sun, Kansas City Voices, New Letters, ONTHEBUS, Relief, and others. She recently received the Harriette Yeckel in Honor of Ingrid de Kok Award.
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