Doctors in India are baffled as to why a young girl spontaneously bleeds through her pores without being cut or scratched, the Telegraph reported Tuesday. Twinkle Dwivedi, 13, sometimes wakes up in the morning covered in dried blood that has seeped through her eyes, nose, hairline, neck and the soles of her feet. She has undergone several transfusions. --AOL Health News, 1 October 2008
Mystics and Krishna won’t cure you
Halleluiah child of bleeding pores
child of India, mother holds your hand
in blue and fuscia striped pajamas
waiting for another transfusion
another doctor to say he doesn’t know
ask the Sufi saints
who sing and dance for you
al hamdu’l ‘illah but nothing happens
your face is lovely I see why they
called you Twinkle and the red stain
runs down your cheek like a teardrop
that won’t come off, but at the same time
you smile for cameras hoping someone will
bring the right medicine, poor little star
so the children will play with you again
so the saints will go sing for someone else
Lori Desrosiers' chapbook Three Vanities is being published by Pudding House Press in 2009. Her poems have appeared in Common Ground Review, Big City Lit, The Equinox, Ballard Street Poetry Journal, November 3rd Club, Blue Fifth Review, Gold Wake Press' mini-chapbook series and others. She is the managing editor/publisher of Naugatuck River Review, a journal of narrative poetry. She lives in Westfield, Massachusetts and is a member of Florence Poets Society.
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