Disease

By Richard Mather

A disease of blood and spirit in a Petri dish,

of skin and brain and bone,

scrutinized and magnified under glass. I am

subjected, recoiling

from the next poke of a pen from a long arm

in a white coat, a hypothetical

to be proved or rejected

under the testing

conditions of this, my life,

your mad laboratory –

I am subjected; a subject is what I am.