COUGHING

It’s like the frenzy that makes the maenads dance,
The berserkers fight: the enveloping rage usurping
Body and soul, and holistically disturbing
Our deepest being. Starting with a chance

Virus or germ, it blossoms into a “cough”–
And that’s a rather innocuous expression
For what is soon to resemble demon-possession.
All day, all night, a tiger is blasting off

Defiance, the body’s skin like an overinflated
Balloon suddenly loosed and wildly convulsing
Its hurricane-spewing seizures of catapulting
Air in wheezes and hacks and gasps. Prostrated

We wonder how the body gets empowered
To grab us heroes and then discard us cowards!

(132, October 17, 1993)

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