I tried to keep my blight from spreading—tendrils bloom
beneath my skin—but now my neighbor’s corpse is ash.
They want to know the truth, to end the pile of bodies’ rise;
I know that truth but do not wish to make a stir, or clash.
By dark our town has fallen quiet, though bursts
of choked up sobbing break in now and then.
At dawn a doctor all in white will come,
and house by house she’ll drag each family out to pens.
She’ll stick and test our flesh there, one by one,
and when she reaches mine, she’ll find the oldest line.
So, shyness forces me to spread the sickness further;
wrapped to hide the truth abroad, I flee before the sun returns.
The truth is: death came quick for me last week,
but still I walked and spoke in town just fine.
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