The Fire of Illness

I used to listen to the subterranean dead

in the clammy privacy of fever.

Almost praying, I pleaded, God,

bring us up in our coffins,

decant us in the light of heaven.

My bed, my sleep, were a boxed struggle.

I carried placards on my skin,

at hand’s edge, purple blood blisters.

I suffered as if from magma within.

Now I fear a heaven I’ve never seen.

I know in the deep school of marrow,

that evil may drag behind a body, a shadow.

The dead were all strangers, intimates

in plague. Now all the living

I know and love seem strange.

Am I a member of the flock, forgiven, blessed,

or marked devil or wolf? Friends,

I limp through cages, ancient.