Fevered Visions
I see in the stupor of my fever,
through burning bloodshot eyes,
a skull with ears and dancing legs
dressed in a skirt of leaves and pointed shoes.
It dances there outside my window,
this thing I cannot recognize.
Now on the shoulders of another
with a long and pointed snout.
Dancing demons reaching for me
while my fever rages.
I sleep in fearful fitful moments,
afraid to close my eyes
as the skull with ears
keeps dancing outside my window--
until the sun goes down
and the bougainvillea no longer casts its shadow
upon the wall--
until it no longer dances in the breeze.
Vi
©May 29, 2005
posted by Vi Jones @ 10:37 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Oi Vey Vi! This is frightening . . . more so because I have been there. A fever that goes high enough that you start to hallucinate . . . or not. Even worse is sitting with a child in the same situation, when they are seeing things and you strive desperately to help them understand that what they are seeing is not real . . . all the while thinking to yourself, ‘what is real?’ It is the end of the poem that really brought the hair up on the back of my neck. When the bougainvillea stopped dancing and no longer cast a shadow, I got cold chills. Sometimes the visitations of fever are not so terrifying as these skulls without ears (*shudder*) The pink mermaids swam all around me when I last had the flu, with a fever of 102. I’ll take them any day to that which was swallowing bougainvillea’s shadows!
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