Bloodletting

This is a dream: I reach up a hand to the left 
side of my neck and feel a body burrowing there—

leech I extract with my fingers. Since it is a dream,
I don't recoil from the soft squishiness of this body

that wants something from me so badly, it clings 
with its whole mouth. 

                                                 This is not a dream: 
I could give blood, but my liver harbors 

a disease that has taken over my whole 
network of distribution. 

                                                       Back in the dream, I pull
but something is left behind, tenacious as desire. 

I barely feel it, since I can't remember when it first
found me, and somehow found me hospitable.