Lymph


Blood is the life and lymph is a ghost
Haunting the body’s obscurest outposts.
It walks through our cells, travels no veins.
Circulation has loosened its chains
On these pallid beasts of immunity
That police pulsing meat’s community
Devouring viruses, cancer’s stray spawn,
Clearing the weeds from biology’s lawn,
Launching attacks from the thymus and spleen.
They journey far forth and then harshly glean
The small nasty bits that can never belong,
Disposing of them with the whispering songs
Of stainless angels hunting down sin,
The serial killers under our skin.
And so we’re preserved by these watery forces
As we wind our slow ways through entropy’s courses.

Elizabeth Stack

If you have any thoughts about this poem, Elizabeth Stack  would be pleased to hear them