Euclides still had no idea
of the conditions of sickness, the rites
and rhythms, still had no sense
of the hospitals, their labyrinths.
He had heard of the corridors
impregnated with ether, of the plants
which once had been people, he heard
talk of plants inebriated with ether.
Would some ethereal being come
to visit the vegetables in the corridor?
Would any ethereal being come
for the liturgy of the patients?
In the Public Hospital
the patience clearly became
heavier, inside the patient caught
in the labyrinth of sickness.
It is not the patience of a spider
who extracts her web with success
from its own body, the kind of spider
who would be a classical writer.
It seems more the patience of a reader
that leaves himself woven into the web
in front of him, in the entangling
words of a famous author.
