Venturing to the world:
the doctor’s office.

The civilized diseases:
gonorrhea, falling hair,
bad skin, neurasthenia.

Body edging into spirit
and I debate:
Is it moral to get better?

St. Francis kissed that leper,
who disdained him,
cursed and dragged off,
jangling his bell on the landscape.

Hugh Seidman, “Atavist”, in Collecting Evidence