2 December 2002 | Vol. 2, No. 4

Antibodies

by ALLAN PETERSON

Sick maybe, and if so yes for home, but not homesick,

that place where vast pastures continue as horizons—

but scared, and hoping as in a game with friendly players

they let you take back a wrong move. That something

small as a virus, black bacteria with a bad flagellum,

coming in low under the radar cannot take us down,

work against us—beautiful fools for unity—but let us

back into ourselves as we knew us, no twinges, pain.

Give me another chance the man with seven convictions

said to the judge on the recent eighth—people can change.

Only two fortunates really, visions and those who see them,

or hear, or feel like the skin-ghost of another world touching you

through the random acts of a gnat or single quirky hair.

All is a prelude to union and continuance, the myth of the dream

of the fable of a wish of a long story of your being invulnerable.

But without a tilde above the first n, squirming like filaria,

the wormy sound of the nasal y in onion and yearn,

mañana is nonsense.