H1N1

God knows how our neighbors manage to breathe. No one is allowed to touch me for infection is a hazard of mercy I will not transmit as Legion transcribed from the mouth of Error into his body and sent into a herd of swine who sent it to the sea who’s been trying to return to earth since creation and nearly succeeds every day. I just took my temperature. 98 degrees. I am better than healthy. I am cooling even as earth heats, even as it meets the sea further inland and negotiates distance from increasingly disadvantaged position. I am cooling because nothing touches me. Others may go to the petting zoo and country fair but don’t even tell me what they touch there. I’m taking my temperature again; my thermometer is digital and pink and its beep is my name being read from the book of life, which is available on Kindle and allows me to avoid the public library but contains peculiar punctuation errors and is transcribed by evangelists while they wait in line at gates you can’t see from here. 98.5. Still cooler than life. I have another glass of water, and feel you turning in me, my little book, flipping over and over, it’s time for bed little sow, little sow. The book of death is open on my bedside table and is called The Pregnancy Countdown