This Winter's Cough That Heckles Me

This winter's cough that heckles me Harasses my health, and saps my confidence That I can survive the misery Of microbe wars and pestilence Raging at my blindness and innocence For I have never met any face to face Never wronged them Nor see to intrude into their space But they drowning me with phlegm Make this invasion personal Refusing to live with me as marginals I would surrender And go to sleep, go to sleep Filled with the doctor's narcotic and helplessness Coded in his bottles and boxes of medication I would surrender But I cannot yield, life is only expectation And through the hacking night My throat a living hell hold back my songs Of tenderness and delight For something in me is never sweet When I come out to fight This is my body, mine alone My temple, and my universe It shall not be my hearse It shall not be my hearse