Chronic

It is time I discuss my sickness.

And here my fingers want to write
skinless. And sometimes it is like this—

a body unspooled in the red morning
light. The light that claims the basil

on the sill, my fingernails, my lungs
which strain with their own scarred music.

I begin to say, yes, I’m ill, as though
I were admitting an addiction, a secret

kept in a closet between shoes
and old handbags. I hold onto

the doorknob, try my feet
in the hallway. Look how

my shadows follow me. Look
how the light comes through my hair.