ISSUE: Spring 1993
I know this fog is here because last night
was clear and cold. It has nothing to do
with runaway virus, the swollen white
matter of my brain, or another new
year of illness—my fourth—leading nowhere
I wish to go. Walking the riverbank,
passing an old man who is always there
at dawn with his German shepherd and blank
stare, I know where I am. I also know
fog is water vapor spewed when moist air
cools to its dew point. I know the limbo
viruses populate is based somewhere
between the living and dead. A billion
billion viruses would fill one Ping-Pong
ball. I know. And also the vermilion
hull of a sailboat named Wayfarer’s Song is invisible now though I can hear
wind through its mast harmonize with a gull’s
cry. It is not the paved walkway that veers
left but my body swayed by the brain’s pull.
But still, I have never felt so strongly
before that the world has become nothing
but an image of what is inside me.
I’ll walk until the fog lifts or something.
was clear and cold. It has nothing to do
with runaway virus, the swollen white
matter of my brain, or another new
year of illness—my fourth—leading nowhere
I wish to go. Walking the riverbank,
passing an old man who is always there
at dawn with his German shepherd and blank
stare, I know where I am. I also know
fog is water vapor spewed when moist air
cools to its dew point. I know the limbo
viruses populate is based somewhere
between the living and dead. A billion
billion viruses would fill one Ping-Pong
ball. I know. And also the vermilion
hull of a sailboat named Wayfarer’s Song is invisible now though I can hear
wind through its mast harmonize with a gull’s
cry. It is not the paved walkway that veers
left but my body swayed by the brain’s pull.
But still, I have never felt so strongly
before that the world has become nothing
but an image of what is inside me.
I’ll walk until the fog lifts or something.
