They Say Uncivil Blood Makes Uncivil Hands Clean; 
'tis Yours in the Bowl Wherein I Wash

It is in the church that we met. 

You: pinned and hung in the 
colored rays of a rising sun—
just above the raving priest 
and foaming disciples. 

Me: forced to kneel at your feet, 
to bathe my palms in your 
rust-filled chalice.

Blood-letting, 
they call it—letting the sin 
slide, drip, drop out of your 
body from the holes in your 
crown and hands and feet. 
You should awake anew—
holy and healed. 

Should. 

They will release me eventually, 
believing me reclaimed, but 
I will remain as I am,
up to my elbows in your blood, 
a smile too sharp to be a lamb’s. 

We will meet again after, with our 
tapetum lucidum aglow and 
canines whetted to rend those 
disciples from snout to tail, to let 
the blood from that congregation and 
bark and howl and growl as its holiness 
slides, drips, drops from our claws.

It is only in this cleansing
that we will find our deliverance.

Tayleigh Folden

Tayleigh Folden is a senior at Kent State Uni
versity on the Stark campus. They will be
graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English
and hope to go to graduate school to one day become a professor. Tayleigh enjoys horror in any shape or form, both writing and consuming. When they aren’t freaking people out with their stories and poetry, they can be found watching scary movies in their basement with their cat Yoshi cuddled close.