Laying on of hands

I walked outside and it was suddenly April.

Millions of snow fleas flitted in the last snowbanks, almost invisible among the crusts of dirt.

Dog shit washed away.

It is raining now and from that we'll be thinking of tulips and wondering how much earlier tomorrow the sun will creep across the windowsill.

I returned home, feeling not quite right, as though something that had been diffuse through my whole body, an armada of toxins and viruses, had coalesced somewhere deep inside of me.

Oprah was on t.v.; I tried to concentrate; force down some potato salad.

Suddenly it was all up over the front of my shirt, pooling in the bib, I unlocked the cuffs so I could try to stumble to the toilet but the puke came out of me like a gun firing, pooling on the wood floors, creeping into the cracks.

Sweat beaded and fell, beaded and fell.

A lump rose in my throat, the gorge pushed up like a geyser, a giant blockage.

I laid on the ground giving birth to something horrible.

My esophagus milked it up out of me and it landed in my throat--hot and textured, a small fist in my mouth, the texture of it was like shit or a living thing, a mouse squiggling between my teeth, the very feeling made me dizzy.

I spit it out onto the floor and it laid there.

A pellet about four inches long and two inches wide, deep brownish-red, like coffeegrounds or bloody stool.

Poking at it with a fork I noticed patches of fur, bits of broken beak, liverish material that shined like an eye.