By Amy Abdullah Barry

A Jeep bumping through the wet jungle,
luggage bound tight to the roof.
Omar smiles behind the wheel.
Days of adventure ahead.

Brake. Engine. Silence.

He touches a tiny leech on his cheek,
green-red, like earth and blood together.
Into his vast skin, it disappears.
Blood oozes in its wake.

I have read of such blood hunters,
their dark meandering into the chambers of human flesh
churning up fevers, vomiting, pain.
Although I fear for Omar,
I am grateful he has been chosen and not me.

Ruby, a chain-smoking doctor
who grins more than she speaks,
draws on her cigarette,
as it burns lazy orange in her left hand,
holds Omar’s face firm with the right.
She proceeds to cut his face with exquisite care.

More blood.
A silence,
except for the grunting monkeys.

She removes the wriggling leech on the blade,
carefully flings it to the ground;
Quickly, skilfully, she stitches the wound.
We breathe deeper
on the woody cinnamon of air —

Watch the bloody little creature
quiver on the brown mud below,
almost grinning, showing its teeth.