The Cure

The Cure
(After Yannis Ritsos)

Although the fever had left him
months before, he kept to his bed: the invalid, his room
a swelter of sweat and booze
and that meaty smell from the hide draped on the floor.

The creature had been skinned alive, he said;
the underside of the pelt still carried the pain
and sometimes, at night, you could see its hackles rise.

Once he dreamed that he got out of bed
and stood astride the thing. It made a back
to carry him out of his sick room into the hall,
then breakneck through the kitchen, through the yard,
and down the street to the sound of whistles and drums.

David Harsent