Linnaeus's Patient

To cure I had to touch          without knowing what touch would do. I had to ease         his trousers down and see the mucus, shiny and constant         on his swollen sex, the red pustules burning to break,         the one vein nourishing the sickness's need. And when         he finally lay bare, I had to percuss the first abdomen, spleen, and liver         of my life. I had never touched a man this way; I had never known         a woman. What I had learned of sex was for plants, not men.

As I watched the base of him         drift from one side to the other I thought of the pepperbush         standing as straight as physics will permit; of the tall willows         swaying beneath the northern lights. I loved that sway,         that drift, and the way the sex was its own animal, unaware         of infection glistening all around, or whether the last woman         had left the roué's bed for good. My finger glanced the tender tip         and drew a thin thread, tenuous, glassy, finely spun, so capable         of breaking. But it didn't; it stayed there, suspended between my finger         and the man, opalescent in its shine. I thought then of the thread         that the Fates weave for every man, the length upon which his life depends.         Slowly I reached for the mercury ointment so as not to disturb the roué, the thread,          the sickness, and in that moment I was certain only of this:         that all things whirl to ruin, and that everyone must die a little         in order for me to cure them.