Challenging Poetry

Panama: Yellow Fever

in heat, I dream
shades of yellow.
golden as the sun on a clear
morning over the ocean,
as the smell of honeysuckle
and bananas
and dust,
as a still pond
in the jungle
with the steady buzz
that speaks of mosquitoes
lurking, biting, bleeding,
as a fire burning within,
eating me away
until nothing is left of me
but yellow.


Author's Note ▶︎

I was looking up yellow fever the other day for something that had nothing to do with Panama, and it reminded me that the reason we know so much about it (it was the first disease to be linked to mosquitoes and to have a vaccine) was because of the Panama canal . . . so I just linked the two and this happened. Inspired by is such an interesting phrase.