La erupcion - nothing is for keeps

This week, I’ve scabs and sores all over one side of my arse
- I think that’s how they diagnosed the cause
- I never knew I carried that line of demarcation, left and right

All over one side and up what American Websites call
- sans irony
the butt crack

Please don’t kick my psyche when it’s down

All the way up that benighted region
to the great concentration of nerves 
of which we are so satisfyingly, divinely, 
and so excruciatingly aware

And so I am debajo de trabajo

I hate it

Ask me where I’d rather be

Lying on my side watching sun-silvered leaves 
swaying and dipping through the railings of my balcony?

Joining round a table in the whiteboard’s sheen
to push and probe the language over coffee, jokes, 
naive affection?

I’ll take the latter

But instead I’m here

Can’t sit, can’t read, can’t play guitar
Can’t head out to a cafe or a bar
- I’m contagious, and in pain

All things must pass
- like the railing shadow's progress over tiles
- like the teaching year, almost at its end

A thousand miles away, contented if confused,
she waits

Can’t wait to see you either, mam
- we’re short of nothing that we’ve got,
remembering that nothing is for keeps