My dress
.        hangs
.                     from my shoulders,
.                                               limp,
as though meant
.        for someone
.                     else.
It leaves room
.                     for the breath
.        rattling
.                     in my chest.
The straps
.        slide
.                     down
.                                   my arms
as I cough
.        again
.                     and again,
.                                   enough to lose my breath,
.                                   to wheeze,
.                                   rasping.
My handkerchief,
.                     always at my nose,
always wet,
.        unclean.
My nails have yellowed,
.                                               cracked.
My toenails have split
.                     to the bed,
making shoes intolerable.
Barefoot, the sores become infected,
.                                                              ulcerous.
The sores in my mouth
.                                   and on my lips
.        burn
.                     when I eat or drink,
my throat is always dry,
.                                               scratched
.                     as though I have swallowed thorns
.                                                              or hot sand.

–E. K. Mortenson,
The Fifteenth Station (2012)
Accents Publishing

More from The Fifteenth Station and E. K. Mortenson:

• “The Second Station”
• “The First Station”
• E. K. Mortenson’s Lexington Poetry Month submissions
• Press for E. K. Mortenson’s The Fifteenth Station

E. K. Mortenson is the author of a chapbook, Dreamer or the Dream (Last Automat Press, 2010), and a full-length collection, What Wakes Us (Cervena Barva Press, forthcoming). His work also appears in both print and online journals and anthologies. He was the 2008 recipient of the Leslie Leeds Poetry Prize and is poetry editor at Kugelmass: A Journal of Literary Humor. He writes and teaches in Pennsylvania where he lives with his wife and two children.