SHINGLES




a mozzie firing range
    strawberry pips
    spokes as weals
                     hot point sprocketed into cold shoulder
              foreign lesions running blistered
                            these hives are humming  baby
               one flaming pain in the glands   stiff jarlsberg!
                    what brand of rashness   burn-out   guilt
                          fired this subcutaneous eruption


         i ask my doctor   my doctor asks me
                                 what do you think it is
        could it be fleas  i hope
                                             possibly
                               or incipient encephalitis
              whole fiery firmaments flicker behind my eyes
                  doctor  my head’s swelling  my neck’s red
                          come now  let’s not get political
                          when the varicella-zoster virus
                  rampages up your central nervous system
                               and hits you in the cornea
                                then we’ll start worrying

             strawberry daiquiri   that’s the shot
                      blood on the rocks  a coolant  kool aid
                 watching for my scratch patch to crust over
                             a child glimpses with disgust
                                    a spot of fascination
                                   above my gran’s vest
                           white pimples limpid as pearls

                                                                                 Michael Small
June, 1992

pub. Polestar, edition 10, June, 2005

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