death on the installment plan

Pathological

i am rotting from the inside out,
st. christopher watches from the wings
waiting to carry me across,
as sun-spoiled milk stink of infection
spikes fever, speaks in swollen tongues

("you weren't supposed to be here.")

maternal reminder of blood born pathogen's
blight tearing at the fiber of new born being,
beating odds only to be buried now by

black plague fouling mouth
bitter root twisting bowel
thumb tack piercing nerve

("an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.")

death's revenge
slithers from remission,
his venom spittle dripping from sinus
across corroded dentition and diseased gums,
through the clog of arteries toward a paper heart,
besotting capillaries of a gelatin brain

st. gerard, where for art though?
now and forever i am still a child
of my mother, seed of my father

their little boy lost and wandering the dark
in search of st. joseph