Fired From the Blood Bank

Gloria got stressed by the blood pints stacked in her broken down cold storage unit

Some of the pints resembled the faces of her old lovers, the way the plastic wrinkled with condensation

The coincidence of insanity can be anywhere…a locked bathroom door…a stolen screenplay…your attempt to slightly change the world with pet lungs

She started painting vaginas to ease the pain of seeing the faces of sex partners on pints of blood

The paintings were derivative, but she didn’t care

Everyone loves a vagina, she’d say

She had a point and soon enough opened a little art gallery

I helped her out for a 10% commission, but nobody was buying

One day I sold four paintings

I told the buyers they were painted in prison when Gloria was serving time for impersonating the daughter of Merrill Streep and running up big hotel bills

When one of the buyers came by the blood bank to ask Gloria about prison, she fired me, but also gave me two pints of blood on my way out the door

Here, these are for old time’s sake, sell them to the new hospital, but don’t tell them they look like the father and son I screwed back in New York City

Gloria thought her guilt was like a newspaper that everyone could read