The new disease came, but not without warning.
The drugs were a toxic combo that kept the sick going
another year. I loved how you talked in your sleep
about free will. Your clothes smelled, but the blood
levels were normal. Now I have seen the sun god:
this is what I thought when I first saw you—the face,
the bearing—but perfection of form meant nothing
to you, and we were all just souls carrying around
a corpse. I smoked cannabis while the government slept.
Drug companies held parties in Arizona and Florida.
The profit motive always thrives. To those who didn’t
sell well in the bars, it felt like Revenge of the Nerds.
Goaded by your hand, I wrote poems, an essence
squeezed out of this matter, memory now.