regurtitation blues

I am sick
sicker than any metaphor that you might cough up
I’m not going anywhere
let her read  poems to everybody else
she stayed in class 2000 miles away
reading her poems to her adoring,nubile pupils
while her father lay dying
what could she possibly have to say to me?

hack & cough & choke
choke & hack & cough
see what comes up
besides my fever
I know that it won’t amount to much
remembering still when my father finally went down for
the long,last count just weeks ago
I’ll stay here in my sick bed with those “Father Death Blues” rattling
sorrowfully in my head