Internal Bleeding
︎︎︎ Joseph Krug
︎ May 17, 2026
Did you forget to bake your daily bread,
You wretched of the fearborn dog-legged race?
Your mother’s dead and gone, her plaintive face
Still bears within its eyes the tears she shed
For you and your salvation; heavy eyed
And tragic, like a pup kicked past the point
of barking, all there: frail bones and noisy joints
Eeking out more sound than her dry
Throat could on the best days of the week.
Know you well that you bear those marks the same?
All full of languor on bright days and shamed
At anything indicative of meek,
Mild life. You were always most at home
In the foul womb of night, sheltered from death
By death, camouflaged in carrion flesh.
Red earth, last I saw you, formed sanguine foam
When the rains fell. I thought you drank from Lethe,
But oh! The ways you’ve kept the memory fresh.
You wretched of the fearborn dog-legged race?
Your mother’s dead and gone, her plaintive face
Still bears within its eyes the tears she shed
For you and your salvation; heavy eyed
And tragic, like a pup kicked past the point
of barking, all there: frail bones and noisy joints
Eeking out more sound than her dry
Throat could on the best days of the week.
Know you well that you bear those marks the same?
All full of languor on bright days and shamed
At anything indicative of meek,
Mild life. You were always most at home
In the foul womb of night, sheltered from death
By death, camouflaged in carrion flesh.
Red earth, last I saw you, formed sanguine foam
When the rains fell. I thought you drank from Lethe,
But oh! The ways you’ve kept the memory fresh.
Joseph Krug is a teacher and writer from New York.