Brian Russell

I ask your doctor of infectious disease if she's read Williams   he cured sick babies I tell her and begin describing spring and all   she's looking at the wall now the floor   now your chart now the door   never heard of him she says but I can't stop explaining how important this is I need to know your doctor believes in the tenacity of nature to endure   I'm past his heart attack   his strokes   and now as if etching the tombstone myself   I find I can't remember the date he died or even the year   of what now are we the pure products   and what does that even mean   pure   isn't it obvious   we are each our own culture alive with the virus that's waiting to unmake us

in a different version of this I'm the one sitting up in bed while the nurse says deep breaths   listens to my lungs through the cold antenna of her stethoscope   you're the one sitting in a chair in the corner with a half hearted smile plastered to your face in a different version of this we're both in bed   hunched over while two nurses   sisters actually   listen to our lungs   your husband and my wife sit in the corners of the room both of them completely useless in a different version of this I'm in a chair in the corner while my sister sits up in bed   you're the nurse who listens to my sister breathing   you glance at me for an instant and return my uncertain smile in a different version of this I sit up abruptly in bed   I'm breathing deeply   you put your hand on my back and say go back to sleep   you're fine   everything is fine

the unthinkable prospect of a world in which I am left to my own devices which are few and as soon as the batteries die useless first order of business I draw a map in the sand mark where I stand as the capital of civilization   within me the detailed blueprints of the pyramids and the concept of zero beyond me the finite frontier the many miles of undeveloped shoreline with spectacular views of a sea filled with intricately depicted monsters   I have a lot to do before I introduce the new world to art and astronomy and industry medicine and technology ethics politics democracy by a show of hands we shall elect which tree to burn in the first fire