I let the flies bite me when I meditate

because I am a blood abundance
and it is said that when you yield an amplitude
it is right to give
of the surplus
and who among us would not bring forth
a teardrop of hemoglobin
if it would feed a starving beggar
and who among us could not afford 
to spare a raindrop in the flash flood

O I saith unto thee, 
it is this abundance 
which hath bowed our backs
this bounty—

like a price 
on our heads,
which hang—

but here have come
mine guardian angels
to alight upon me
and banquet,

to sit at meat
and to make my burden

light

Copyright © 2021 by Nick Demske. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 9, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.