PEOPLE SCRAMBLING TO GET AWAY FROM A PERSON WITH LEPROSYRichard Tennant Cooper, c. 1912

By Adam Tavel / Issue 18

our figure here whose face is rotting off
aghasts :: like us the balconed peasants glare
into the scene performing their disgust ::
egads :: gadzooks :: purpureus her skin
in rags she plods her staff and shakes a bell
to warn another village hissing through
its cavities :: the fruit stand’s quaint remains
fester sun-stained :: one bucket spills its guts
into the shadow of a trough :: and all
the jeerers sprawled across the steps recoiling
from the leper’s ding ignore the naked babe
left in the street to suck its thumb and stare ::
veridical our mob is absolute ::
each mother turns away her empty arms

ADAM TAVEL is the author of five books of poetry, including two new collections: Green Regalia (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022) and Sum Ledger (Measure Press, 2022). His third book, Catafalque, won the Richard Wilbur Award (University of Evansville Press, 2018). His recent poems appear in North American Review, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Ninth Letter,The Massachusetts Review, Copper Nickel, and Western Humanities Review, among others. You can find him online at http://adamtavel.com/