expensive funerals

Now I know why I’m a poet,
sickness always leaves the mouth

last

sickness as in—a condition to expel
nausea that doesn’t want a home in me

it wants the world to see
it for what it’s hidden/

hidden as in-kept secret

a sickness of secrets
a coughing
a sloughing
a trophy

for courage to spill it
regardless who tastes it/

courage as in a backbone
as in valor
a valuable

as in worthy,
an heirloom//

pain leaves the body
fizzes out
drinks of itself
delivers itself

to another host
who might possess
the strength to
drink of this sickness

as in,

a condition to expel/