illness

i want to go to this conference today but it started twenty minutes ago and i'm sick (again!), which is the best and worst excuse for everything.

colors appeared where they should not have been—
that was the beginning. a snail stopped
being a snail; it shook itself straight, fluttered
away with the wind. the ice became
uncertain as to its state of being.
not knowing anymore how
to be slippery, the cold was cold, abruptly
colder, and then stopped trying. though something
delicious was outside of my head,
and then inside, it could not
have been otherwise. in other ways,
it was the way a clock could start
and stop ticking at will and a chime
could unchime itself discreetly that
clued us in to the other ways of otherwise