Poultice

A bulb on your neck rises like a dead Sunday
so I squeeze boiling water from a damp heart
of sliced white, mix in some clay dust and camomile.
A hot snowball, a butterless bomb I wrap in muslin,
hold its heat against the affected area. It warms
and softens your skin, drains your basket of nails,
your bed of dry podcasts, your storm cloud of paper,
your burst pipes of admin, your choir of naysayers,
your cow of off milk, your thousands of extras,
your mountain of rope tricks, your platitudes of treacle,
your modicum of mosquitoes, your cloud of entreaties,
your mortar of mistletoe, your dollop of wasteland,
your scarcity of liver, your clerks of loud emails,
your bottle of slaters, your colloquy of bit parts,
your ice age of microbes, your coterie of loners.
It warms and softens your pores, opens their mouths
wider to sing of light on the glass of water by our bed.