Flu Season

Bodies sync in sickness and in health
so little wonder that mine curves with yours,
double quoting round dry coughs. Unselved,
I imitate your husk, fling to the floor
the sweat-stained sheets, inhale the bruising breath
that pulses from your throat. In sympathy
we suffer with, absorb a little death,
feel aches at secondhand. A fantasy
of boundaries dissolving. Whose fingers these?
In whose head flared the fever bud? How slick
your substance cleaving to my tongue. Disease
is alchemy, this bed our alembic,
you my transmuted twin alloyed in pain,
damp flesh of my flesh, waxing where I wane.

Shalmi Barman

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Shalmi Barman would be pleased to hear them