Malaria, long sleeping in the blood
leaps in an adder’s fashion, suddenly -
the body unprepared and unattended:
But I am stricken with another sickness
that hides and coils itself around the veins
then strikes and strangles
When my breath’s seized with such arrest
I shake and tremble
cannot withhold my eyes from your bent look
and, in the words that stumble
out of my mouth,
cannot dissemble
- Dorothy Livesay
