The medieval physician said it was in
the spleen, Chinese medicine diagnoses
liver, this leviathan that comes from
deep within and threatens
the life from which it springs.
It moves to kidneys, gallbladder,
spreading like an untreated cancer,
to the pancreas, to the heart,
to the brain. It’s as prevalent
as breath, and I am both container and
contained. It’s an opportunistic species,
this chronic visitor who smells like old fish.
And it will kill. Soft things now, and
everything eventually. I don’t know how
to treat the condition except to distance
from the hotbeds, to look for those
who are not infected and pray they
inject an antidote of empathy in my
veins. Or I listen to Deva Premal sing
Hindu chants, or I read Mary Oliver,
or I walk, walk, walk the roads
and the trails and the meadows
until I have taken root
again in the soft earth of a
forgiving mother who is so
near the end of her rope that
any prodigal’s return is offered
the fatted calf of peace, and if I
sit on a stump long enough and
stare at the water and stay as
still as the heron in the distance,
I can feel the mending
in my spleen.
© 2020 Deb Moore, All Rights Reserved
Deb Moore 