Bloodworks
by Albert Mobilio
Deep within the human tree. Even though it is still very early on this cloudless day, the sun’s heat can be felt in the soil around the stems of the tomato plants. His fingertips work small circles in the dirt, taking measure of the moisture there. The row along the back fence, where the sun bears down all morning, will need some water, but around the plants closer to the house a trace of last night’s watering remains cool to his touch. He lets the hose play across these plants careful not to pock and gully the ground. His thumb regulates the flow from its open mouth —the nozzle, with it’s finely graded settings of mist, rain, and downpour broke last spring—and, anyway, he believes he can squeeze out manually even finer calibrations of intensity. Flow deep within the human tree. The yard is just below where the subway train climbs high on a trestle after emerging from a tunnel and when he works in the garden he sometimes looks up and can easily see passengers’ faces, see them shielding their eyes from the sun as they look out over the rooftops. A rich, wet smell fills his head as he surveys the garden. Patches of red are scattered among the shining leaves; the ripening tomatoes are beginning to bend some plants. When he eats them—sliced thickly, sprinkled with salt—he thinks, they will taste like this air does now. But that won’t be for another week or two, depending on the weather. Today, there is other work to do. This morning the collector has an appointment.
“You’ve got good veins,” he says. His guest laughs a bit uneasily and flexes her arm to accentuate the effect. “Some people’s are hardly visible. But yours stand out. This will be easy.”
It’s true. Her veins are very visible. Almost achingly so. Just below the surface of her pale skin they are like blue-green fault lines that divide her slim arms into a skein of prospective cataclysm. It is impossible not to look at them and not be aware that her body—that anyone’s body—is a pneumatic machine governed by pressure, release, and the possibility of rupture. Washing at the spigot, she clasps and rubs her hands. The collector takes notice as her veins—ever so slightly, in fact, no one else would see it—pulse outward when she tenses.