Journey in the Plague Year

you cannot hide    the cancer cells
clean as smokestacks through the clouds
inevitable
as fingers on your hand    (growing
extra ones)    there is no villa that will hide us
each one is cancered over with moss
the countess' coach is wrecked enroute
the wolfpack builds around it
scarred and scrawny
growing extra ones
above the trees is factory smoke

from Cyclone Fence (2007)