fever

frenetic faces
friends and fears press round
in elongation
lives close quietly clasped around cupped hands
and like a hinge one finds oneself suspended
between closed an open
swung like a fever irrational and interior
as sweated pulses bang their drum illogical
the mad rhythm of deliriums angst
presses down the keys of logic
as unit notes arraigned
as warriors in masks of terror
as abstract ranks and songs of foe

induction heats and cools and heats
days have passed like swallows through my coma
clouds have unspun their rain
and cooled the plains inside
and slowly slowly as their waters seek the taproot
so life returns and grasses green return
and dawn like buds are my open eyes

wash me with your tears
preserve me in their varnish
bind me in the gauze of wonder
blind me with its balefire light and anguish
believe i am alive
for all the devils of the underworld
could not keep me from you
nor all their walls or cavern prisons