April 10, 2009

Cheerful

I have long feared
that my small walks
in the heavy forest of poetry
would make me one of
those sad characters
in Vaudevillian melodramas
or French cabarets.

Even now as I
sit and wait, my
concrete pencil
barely moves.

The rash on my leg
is growing and the
sky is starless and still.

I begin to believe
my hypochondria.
I take small breaths
so the cancer doesn't spread.