How the bleeding cut responds to the knife

In her iconographic poem ‘Bleeding’ (1970), the American poet May Swenson presents a dialogue between a knife and a cut:

Stop bleeding said the knife.
I would if I could said the cut.
Slop bleeding you make me messy with this blood.

I’m sorry said the cut.
Stop or I will sink in further said the knife.
Don’t said the cut.

The knife needs to cut but is disgusted by blood: the apologetic and self-hating cut has to bleed in order to feel. Swenson’s brilliant poem sets out the archetypal roles of slasher and victim, sadist and masochist, male and female, that have become central obsessions of contemporary culture
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Gender Distress

Elaine Showalter