Tuberculosis

The racking chest is surely a symptom. A symptom of the dreadful pursuing illness. It means that we can rub sore backs with items such as oils and tinctures.

Molly came back to me and looked after the back. She wasted every moment she had looking at the tiny moles that had developed there too. She was so tender. So joyous in lying next to me. Her head, oh her tiny breath on my shoulder. Sometimes her hand just lay softly on my neck, just breathing quietly.

Once here, she is mine again. Just for a moment in the March air. She rolls and talks, in her sweet way. What a joy to have her here all to myself as the sun watches. We only greet in that hello way, the Ritz elevator way. Pass me a cherry with a stick and I'll make you a cocktail, she called to me across the morning room.

Talking, just being alone, wandering the friendly aisles of forgotten alleys. Where the ladies and dresses line the streets.

Breath.
Tuberculosis.
Thickening chest.
Possibly much worse.
Possibly the chest that will bring my end.

I wonder where her hands learn the ways of healing. She is here again. Turning. Softly, softly.

The sound of the breath now is crackly.
I know it is there, the disease.
The sound of the breath is lonely, looking for a way out.
The sound of death is rising, bubbling. Froth and filth.

Bed linen lines the moist trapped aureoles of air. Cleanliness in sin. The lungs, the terrible lungs. They do hurt me so much Molly. Come let me hold you once more, whilst you are still here. Still. Stillness, still.