Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu

Excerpt

Self-portrait with the Spanish Flu

The scream evokes the dream I dread.

“I want to sit up,” you had said,

regarding the chair.

I carried you there

from the bed.

Tears were shed

but not by you. You drew cold air

and shut your eyes, ever the fair

sister I adore.

The halos of your

backlit hair

led my stare

from their gilt sheaves to the cracked score

of the window-panes’ ferny hoar

frost. Your soul, wrested

from its maidenhead,

found the door.

Metaphor.

This phthisis has disquieted

the Muses and dispirited,

yea, Apollinaire,

his devil-may-care

and hurt head,

shepherded

to futter the fields of trouvère.

Endless black weddings fill the air

with song and implore

the dispatch of war-

like despair;

everywhere,

we fall sick with fevers that pour

gloom into us and dull the core

of bright hues that fed

on what painters bled

from a door

heretofore.

Mark Olival-Bartley