Malaria

A wind blows through
a hollow that was us
and the habits we’ve become
in the selfishness of years.
I’m hungry for our memories
yet I can no longer smell you
or the body we lived together.

I mourn the rooms where we made love.
The cheap hotels of Jerusalem,
Sofia, Fez, and especially
Sayaxche on the Rio La Pasión.
The flea bites and mosquito bites
still exist, somewhere in the sweat
of ourselves. The high fever, the shaking
chills, and the thinness of walls,
we live the body we loved together.