Now that I am sick,

I have become

so important

to myself.

 

My reflection in every

surface, no matter

how marbled or matte.

 

My story swelling

like a Magic Eye

in every page I read.

 

There has been much discussion

of the life that lives within me –

The bodies and the antibodies.

The custodians and usurpers.

 

And like some gouty tyrant,

 

I have been waking

in the witching hours

obsessing over legacy

 

and who will inherit

my debts and vendettas.

 

Ach, the moon is such

a lousy prescription.

Such a queasy pill.

 

And the river such

an inattentive orderly.

 

This soil has such a

bitter bedside manner.

So unsteady a hand to hold.

 

Atop this crematory heap

of suffocating supplicants,

 

as the hot ash finds

the last of the Minoans,

scuttled in fields of saffron,

 

I beg and I weep and I rage:

 

But what about me?

Beautiful me?

What will become,

after all, of me?