I thought, only a vulture could carry me.
I was alone with Alone, a loneliness
Angle or angel, dependent on e, which
Is irrational, infinite, transcendental,
And imaginary i, know
The abscess and untreated
Strep gave me half a week left,
Half a throat left, half a tube left,
Needle and nurse missing tonsils,
So they drove the syringe over there,
Missing a lump that must be bowling
Ball bulk, the ankle of it up-and-down-
Feet focused, I guess. I could taste,
Smell the medicine, this honeypot sting
Operation with sting-
Rays’ mouths and gills
Breathing and breeding through the glass
With gray, flat smiles, shouting sting
Ray, the nock to arrowhead
A negative length, sits col-
Linear with good memory, the col the bottom
Of where I am—I can’t see the peak
Straight. For symmetry, who wouldn’t
Want the same for me then
In Lieu of a Doctor’s Note for MATH 115
Prince Bush reads poetry for TriQuarterly and lives in Nashville, TN. He was a Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets fellow, and he graduated from Fisk University as an Erastus Milo Cravath Presidential Scholar.