How strange to run out of iron,
to fill up with yawn. 
A finger prick beads blood
not so red, not so thick.
How strange to sit in the cancer chair
and not have cancer, to lose
an hour watching a tube infuse
a pouch of coffee-brown solution
into the back of my needled hand
until the sack was shriveled, my avatar. 
Done, my vein looked the same,
and I’d felt no pain sitting there
daydreaming of blood, bridles, needles,
true north, and the slow triumph of rust.

First published in Tar River Poetry Review, vol. 55, no. 1, fall, 2015