The Truth of This Illness

Some benevolent force is reorganizing
me into its own
image
I am being paginated,
and broken into stanzas,
rearranged in the blank space of parchment
 in order
to make more sense.

Urgent Care

I am fevered skin

The object of my desire, myself.

How does the afternoon sun burnish olive curtains

making the dreary window frame glow?

And the good sun’s announcement

as if to usher a glint of the outside

world into my sickbed.

It is moments like these

of utter stillness

determined by the body’s very own halt

that I feel the weight of bone

muscle

skin

organ.

A body

conspiring to dig its way down into

the soil beneath this house

pressing, more than releasing, down

through bed, floorboards, and foundation

in order to taste a future burrowed soily home.

I feel the dumping of memory

and the

Shy discovery of something hidden

Within the folds of words.

I feel a baby’s skin creeping 'round my body,

wrapping in tightness the in-between places of

tendon and ligament.

The street lights are out,

like midnight in Santa Fe,

the only thing visible the ancient breath

of stars.

And I, fevered child, lay still awake
and dreaming

The interstitial space between me and the

Unseen, disappears.

And what comfort this sensation

of doing nothing

and still sinking.

A sun bath persistently

scrubbing my face and

flickering loudly on the screen

of my closed eyelids.

I close,

patient

as if the screaming sun

and deafening gravity

would tear me apart once and

For all      
          The ember and shine of the day’s last light

leaves a blister on the bed where I lay

          The language of this poem perched

where a body had once been.