from The Book of Motion (2003):
PSEUDOEPHEDRINE
by Tung-Hui Hu
I'm not sick, I can't be sick, but here I am,
flat on my back, meek, tranquilized,
elephantine but still very healthy.
Everything moves slowly.
The girl next door has taken several months
to pick up her mail. Lichen, ferns, and small vines
are growing everywhere, turning the walls green,
grinding the floors into loam. Similarly,
everything in the refrigerator has gone bad,
but I can't taste things anymore.
Vegetable cardboard, leftover
cardboard, a world of blank surfaces. Most made
of plaster, some from butcher paper.
I feel a bit drowsy.
All the people who are visiting me
shuffle invisibly through the room, as if at a wake
for a famous person. The one in my corner whispers
to another: "He was once the president of a major
country."
They're about to scatter my ashes over the ocean,
and I barely have the chance to object. Look,
my hands are floating miles away, and I have become
massive as a volcano.