The Taste of Blood

Bite your tongue
hard and unexpected
and know the truth--

Blood and pennies
taste just the same.

Speak freely
and know
that copper
flows smooth
and shiny as cells
as it leaves your mouth.

Once a punishment,
there is now peace
in so much
fluid
and in the growing
vocabulary
of new language.

The heat
of spirit
is comforted
in the color
red.

Love, as everyone knows,
only hurts
when you break
the skin.