infected

hebrews 4.12

(As if you were slicing merrily into your tomatoes
cucumbers, cheese)
  
when truth
that twoedge tongue
licked swift and silky
striped your palm: watch
red beads, glassbright, thread a glossy string

then pooling, welling, dripping
watch that newopened eye
weeping and weeping:
(the smell, too, a sharp metal tang)
you wait for the first pricks of pain

and then the eye
redrimmed and staring
still, beneath the bandage
has ceased its weeping, is
festering

you have slapped on it perhaps
a chilly, numbing cream
(a fairy tale--a film; a cause; a class;
a glass of pinot grigio or three)


beneath its taped-gauze veil
it pricks and bites
threads thin fingers through your palm
seams, red and waxy-yellow
your wrist
your arm

you ache, you itch, you flush
bite your lip
take a sip
flip the page
your streaking skin
your deepflesh seamed
puffs pink and angry at its touch

you ache, you itch, you flush
your flesh (you feel it!) shrill and outraged,
dying