Poem with Delirium and Fever Breaking

When you were young and very ill,
they asked you where you went in

your dreams. You'd say under a banner
woven with marigolds and mango leaves.

Or a forest, or a dock leading away
into a country of darkly endless water.

Or a world of such intense heat, the tips
of your lashes would have been singed had you

not wept. Somewhere in a room with high windows,
your body trembled from the shock of being

laid on a bed of ice or metal: this is
how you learned of whispering columns;

of passages where, tapping through
walls, a pulse kept asking who you were