Malaria, Poems

Mirror

31 MIRROR We read with mirrorlight how do we say? Not often enough to mean the inverse. Symbiosis: see you soon, that’s enough, fear of far with an I while far with they stays okay if it stays away. We run as the river lives through us. The spur of life is that we cannot experience any entity in its entirety. The baby’s toenail or fontanelle. A sliver of sky or the crow’s eye. W e r e a d w i t h m i r r o r l i g h t h o w d o w e s a y ? N o t o ft e n e n o u g h t o m e a n t h e i n v e r s e . S y m b i o s i s : s e e y o u s o o n , t h a t ’ s e n o u g h , f e a r o f f a r w i t h a n I w h i l e f a r w i t h t h e y s t a y s o k a y i f i t s t a y s a w a y . W e r u n a s t h e r i v e r l i v e s t h r o u g h u s . Th e s p u r o f l i f e i s t h a t w e c a n n o t e x p e r i e n c e a n y e n t i t y i n i t s e n t i r e t y . Th e b a b y ’ s t o e n a i l o r f o n t a n e l l e . A s l i v e r o f s k y o r t h e c r o w ’ s e y e . 32 The mirror projects, we trust infinite variables: frontal, quarter profile, the degrees between. The other side is not always, but there always is the other side. Malaria pivots on the silver point of poverty. I is in the beauty of the beholder. Th e m i r r o r p r o j e c t s , w e t r u s t i n fi n i t e v a r i a b l e s : f r o n t a l , q u a r t e r p r o fi l e , t h e d e g r e e s b e t w e e n . Th e o t h e r s i d e i s n o t a l w a y s , b u t t h e r e a l w a y s i s t h e o t h e r s i d e . M a l a r i a p i v o t s o n t h e s i l v e r p o i n t o f p o v e r t y . I i s i n t h e b e a u t y o f t h e b e h o l d e r . 33 “Doctors who specialize in tropical medicine went through the same rigors of medical training and accumulated the same amount of medical-school debt as their colleagues who chose pediatrics, oncology, cardiology, or neurology. But when they chose different diseases, they chose different patients. As a result, they gave up the comforts. . . .” — Bill Shore, The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men: Inspiration, Vision, and Purpose in the Quest to End Malaria ...