Living in the earth-deposits of our history Today a backhoe divulged
or melancholy a tonic out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old cure for fever
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate
Today I was reading about Marie Curie: she must have known she suffered her body bombarded for years she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil
She died a famous woman denying her wounds denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power [15] by the element [10] [5] from radiation sickness
GLOSSARY
GLOSSARY
[2] backhoe: digger [2] divulged: made private or sensitive information public [2] flank: side [3] amber: dark yellow [4] melancholy: sadness; depression
[6] Marie Curie: Noble Prize-winning physicist (1867– 1934). She and her husband Pierre discovered the elements polonium and radium
