For a Piece of a Minute’s Peace

It’s a simple story, really.
There’s no need for advanced technique
Or character development,
No interlocking story arcs.

One person convinced another
Of the value of a potion.
If you swallowed it, contentment
Filled you like sunlight fills a room.

To get the potion, you gave blood.
To get more, you gave more blood, or
You sold portions of your potion
For blood from others, trading blood

Up the chain to keep the potion
Flowing down. What was going on
At the top? At the top, the blood
Was distilled to make more potion,

The greater the diversity
And volume of blood, the purer
And more delightful the potion,
The more could be kept from the cut.

Blood flowed up. Potion trickled down.
Scoffers wrote it was ironic
That the problem with contentment
Seemed you could never get enough,

But tell that to those at the end
Of the line, swilling foul water
With a few grams of contentment
Per gallon of donated blood.