Size / / /
Immortal, but not happily, I wait.
If Jane Austen can be freshened by
an infusion of assorted monsters,
how delightful might my story be
if I had, instead of a wracking cough,
sharp teeth with which to tear the throat
of Gilbert Osmond and deliver my
beloved Isabel from his cruel thrall.
Alternately, to breathe through gills, no need
of blasted lungs, would be a mercy. But
I would not like to be a ghost, for that
is close to what I am. Deliver me
from my sickbed and my kindness. I am
tired of being selfless. Deliver me
from these blocks of realistic prose
with no reprieve from illness, locked inside
my body, inside this book.