His story begins in his illness,
when his body found no friends
in the village where we live,
the women looking at him with stone stares,
saving their smiles for the buds on trees and dead rock.
Needing to join with something, with anything,
the cells in his body took in the homeless beings
that float in the air, swim in the water, and fight in the earth,
they gave them shelter, fed them, created important work for each of them
(though it seemed as if his fevered body was at war),
and called them mit-o-chon-dri-a.
And he, who was once one with us,
became something more than a man, but less than a spirit,
and when the children began to die in droves,
it was to him the women came, 
to beg him for a drop of his blood
to cook in the soup that would save their sons and daughters.





			Brandywine
			4/14/98