the accoutrements of illness gather
like the flotsam of some grounded voyage
that beached on its own mortality:
the detritus that beckons you back into bed,
assures comfort in the status of being
something less than what you have been,
or could be. and the illness itself
hangs dim around the edges, curtains that blow
in the cool breeze of painkillers and the haze
that opens, sheer and soft, for more
delirium: grounded, floating, nauseous.
eventual health seems so far away
when every object screams handicap,
tells you to lie still and stay quiet.
it becomes easier to believe the landscape
than the body, with its queasy lies
and dead desires: the blood will still rush
when you stand no matter how you hope.