I was dusting my head with my hair
when the jaw shot out
of my filing cabinet
with a clack of dental
castanets. Something was pulling
my strings — then my legs
began to jitter as if bats
were harnessed to the knee-
caps. It was the ague,
the grippe, the palsy,
the plague — some old
disease, its visiting hour
come at last, had me
in its talons. I will not say
what I said — a dangerous
curse best left to rattle
in my head — but finally
St Vitus lay down and died, and
I pulled him from the wound
in my side and stained
the paper red.