The First Drop Poem by Prateeti Sengupta

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
 / Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
 /The multitudinous seas in incarnadine, 
 / Making the green one red."
~~
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act II Scene II
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Drowning and floating and drowning again
At the bottom of an ocean of gore:
Living and dying and living again,
For Sin crouches at my door!

Word on the street: I'm beyond saving,
I can't see the stars where I am.
So save your tears for the deserving -
This world hides from my shame.

My mark drives me hither and thither,
Foul rag in a gust of wind;
Doors I knock on crumble and wither
‘Neath my touch, and His wrath so blind!

So, am I really my brother's keeper?
I'll rot in Hell! Wait. I can't die, remember?
I'm a tiller of the soil, and a reaper
Of fruits; but no grave, however somber

Can hold my bones, and feed my flesh
To the worms. Not a blade of grass,
Not a single leaf can push
Its head from the earthen mass

That gaped to receive his blood.
The blood that haunts! O, terrible scourge!
It screams my name, in a sweeping flood
That no penance can purge.

Thus over and again I sink and drown,
In an ocean of kindred blood;
The first drop ever, spilled by my hand,
Turned the shaded green, one red!