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Humanities

The sweet disease

Suzanne Edison
CMAJ October 22, 2018 190 (42) E1261; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.180763
Suzanne Edison
Seattle, Wash.
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Figure
Image courtesy of CoffeeAndMilk/iStock

His lips on mine like algal blooms on

stagnant water spread me.

Our legs entwined as milfoil, bound

as we once were to the stop & go & go & go

until we thought we were gone.

Immune to thoughts of disease, the rush

of lust’s sweetness fuelled me.

I rose to his touch like the Sagrada Familia —

ever-expanding, unfinished cathedral —

my skin translucent as leaded panes, the

holy, holy, whole

I imagined embraceable. My immunity

is now fractured; highs and lows

of sugar siphon spontaneity.

Ebbing, my mind reels in undertow and

worry: will I die

in a car crash, will I injure others

with words spouted

at random, will anyone stay with me as I surf

this wave, forever? In endless routines

I claim my body’s rites: daily test strips,

calculated eating, and stake out its beauty.

Stained and glassed my tattooed cells

radiate a full house of hues.

Replicating their miscoded chain

in a roar of rearranged notes, they attack.

Some days I am shaky, beached,

untouchable. Other times I’m cresting

as I come ashore, as if the islets of Langerhans —

birthplace of insulin — were Hawaiian, full

of birdsong and their saving ichor,

which I must now inject

into this gyrating score, this chemistry

humming with flagrancy.

Footnotes

  • This article has not been peer reviewed.

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In this issue

Canadian Medical Association Journal: 190 (42)
CMAJ
Vol. 190, Issue 42
22 Oct 2018
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The sweet disease
Suzanne Edison
CMAJ Oct 2018, 190 (42) E1261; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.180763

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The sweet disease
Suzanne Edison
CMAJ Oct 2018, 190 (42) E1261; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.180763
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