Blood

There is wide-ranging symbolism in the title of the poem, “Blood.” Blood is the dominant motif in the poem even though it is referred to only once in the text. It evokes the phrase “blood is thicker than water’” referring to family ties that supersede any other loyalty. Blood also refers to the blood that is spilt during conflict.

Interestingly, the speaker does not describe the young victim in the poem—the Palestinian child—as bleeding. Rather, the speaker herself is aware of how the news headlines “clot in my blood” (Line 16). The damage is hidden, which is how she chooses to respond because she lives among Americans who may not sympathize.

She has a visceral response to the story, as if a family member has been killed. There is no description of blood being spilt in the text. Rather, the speaker implies the child has been killed, unable to bear describing what she sees on the front page.

She and her father talk “around the news” (Line 22), incapable of facing the tragedy directly. In this sense, the title of the poem does a lot of the work not done by the text itself. “Blood” is the foremost symbol in the poem, but just as it remains hidden in the speaker’s body, it is referred to sparingly in the five stanzas.