Thermometer

As soon as I broke into a sweat,
last night, after we finished discussing
humanoids, minerals and eucalyptus,
I put under my left armpit,
an old thermometer,
and watched
its bulb of swollen mercury crawl
along walls of glass intestines;
three million silver fists cupping upwards,
in preparation for a journey of slippery trundles.

The strides at first were hurried;
its metal toes, faintly palsied,
climbing through a basket of spines,
a painted lattice of calibration marks,
within an airless cylinder of anti-gravity.
But eventually, the slender tip of mercury's tongue
retired into a familiar home,
where candles made of paraffin
collapsed in flames, warming
the lungs of formless vacuum;
to match
the temperature of my sleeping cells,
febrile, delirious, sociopathic.

I read out loud
a number, and penned it in my notebook.

Removed from my proximity,
the metal with its vibrating eyes
dilated, discolored, slunk into
its bulbous brain.

I put it back in its rosewood box,
a bed engraved, wallpapered magenta
the thermometer itself -
In an olive suit, hair undone,
invisible eyelids heavy with sleep.