portrait of a sick body in six acts by Marie Zelaya (17, New York)*

act i.  
             in which we are introduced to a flesh/ gathered in gorges and islets/ and the cherry bloom  of blood/ as if to remind us that a small wound is yet/ a wound. feel/ the dull touch of scar tissue  pooling under/ bruises and remember pain/ loses its efficacy the longer it stays./ see/ how the  body that sees too much/ blinds itself. ​

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act ii.  
             the body weeps in copper smell and/ it is but blood and fluid/and the bright light above  butcher’s counters./ for all suffering is much the same when you/ come down to it./ a truth:/ it is  not what comes into the body that pollutes for/ this body pollutes itself in/ its own panic./ and  another:/ this body is alive/ today because a lot of pigs/ died.  

act iii.  
             the scene is/ a marketplace/ strung with phosphoryl and/ adenine and/ the heady stench of  cell death/ in illegible corners./ there - look,/ the body pickpockets itself and laughs/in the thirst  of/ perpetual motion for/ it is easy/ to confuse error/ and obsession/ and the impossibility of/  thermodynamics when/ you are as busy as it is./ take comfort that/ it is only in the shadow  probability/ of t-cells/ that/ the body loathes itself. 

act iv  
             in which/ the body discovers itself in/ the sap tang of tongue depressors/ and antiseptic/  and photons feverish from/ the small sun that reads/ welch allyn./ in this place prescriptions  bloom/ like flowers and the body folds them,/ cranelike,/ into armor.  

act v. 
             for we the ill know/ the body is/ a pair of lungs/ and the vacuum scream/ of sinew singing  like a whale/ in the white fire of neurons./ we the ill know/ the body is/ the atlantic/ in the  creeping salt itch of adhesive/ and flesh strung harpoon-like/ with saline/ we the ill know/ the  body is/ nuclear in/ the reactor drip of vasculature and electrons/ and time./ 

act vi.  
             ​for we the ill know/ life/ is but slow death.

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