I have found my own true illness,
exile tremens: though a snowfall wads the glass,
recurring fevers burn back to the fires of my own country,
a torn footprint, a thin wolf running
with the poem between my teeth.
Had, eye, lip charred by goodbye,
I offered the fluorescent nurse my dream of liniment,
black leaves, caravans of linen
long enough to wrap us all into oblivion.
—And on the fourth night, opening her hands,
the two cool shards my eyes have longed for.
Past the smothered glass, a wagon,
loaded with new wheat, tilts on a rut,
collapses in the threshing yard—wheels
spinning in the window with a crazy flame.
Too many harvests! Look,
the sack of my despair thrown to the floor.
And still the voice above the mountains crying
Blessed art thou crossing on the frozen waters,
Blessed art thou on the high stone shore.
-Peter Sacks, T.B. Sanatorium, Denver, Colorado
