Organic Farming

Organic Farming

I. The Discovery

Fingers trekked around throbbing ear

smelling for infection.

Are you a tumor?

Sleep no longer nourishes me

or the mass, a black bean:

firm, plump, and so very dark,

rotting inside my body.

How did I become germinated?

II. The Walk-in Clinic

I arrived before the doors unlocked.

Waiting rooms make bodies

leak premature death.

III. The Diagnosis

The older man (conventionally handsome)

shook my lubricated palm.

He dove into me for only a moment

before tossing me back to the nurse.

She flushed me out twelve times

until I was clean again.

“I have this lump in my neck,” I said,

gesturing with my hand.

He pressed for half a second.

Swollen lymph node from infection.

IV. The Waiting

Is spent with drops marinating canals.

One second unraveled 43,200.

The fingers obsessively prod

my little black bean,

checking to see if it sprouted

or aborted.