Infusion: Round IV
A newness each day
of this final cycle,
despite the ones before,
inscribed in a ledger book.
I am singing
a children’s round
I never know when
will end. Each hour side-
tracked, as taxol
riffs in my blood,
crescendoes then dies,
giving rise to legions
of lesions in mouth
and lining of gut
transposing itself.
I am baby-bald. I am
all over smooth
and buffed, and
the blush of pristine
skin makes me almost forget
the curtained
ridges on nails,
like arsenic’s tracks,
and bruises that bloom
and spread
in muted tones
wherever they fall —
on parts gone numb —
and panic
in cut-time,
arriving by
Day eighteen
despite favorable
odds for a “cure”
of which I can only be sure
when I die of something else.