Let us collect all our diseases
Place them on a shining walnut shelf
Like bowling trophies, not really won,

More like found at a garage sale down the street
Visitors will come, they must see them, but
We do not talk, they will draw their conclusions

The Cleaners hate trophies like a sickness
Pot metal dust magnets with many edges
That repel the effort to brighten them

Often useful only as bookends, they hold up
Elementary Biology and Leaves of Grass
The Journal of Albion Moonlight and Willard and the Bowling Trophies.

Like trophies, the diseases are self-referencing
They sometimes look alike but there is always a little
Brass plaque with your name on it.

I remember fondly my golden trophy
I turned it in increments and stared at the
Glory of it, the odd vision of accomplishment

In a fleeting time I forgot the specifics
For display and arrangement, the effort after the fact
There was no meaning in carrying them from place to place

They must end in the ragged cardboard box
With “Trophies” written in black
Perhaps a garage sale, twenty-five cents.