Tom Lux - The Blister Test

[mythomanic]

The Blister Test

They think you're dead but you're not.  You're in a coma
or have a rare condition
that mimics death - you feel the pennies,
cool and heavy, on your eyelids,
you sense far-off weeping, but of the three people
here (the town priest, a quack doctor, and somewhat slow
Cousin Freddy) only Freddy can weep,
though rarely does so at deaths,
especially deaths in the family.  As the doctor rifles
your pockets and the priest, using butter,
pulls a ring from your finger, you wish
Tanta Hedwig were here.
She's sharper than Freddy; she'd insist
(more out of superstition
than in real hope: Dead is dead, Tanta Hedwig
always said) on the blister test: a match
held to the sole
of the deceased's left foot.  If it doesn't blister
you're dead.  If it does,
it means you live.
In the case of the former: you go to earth.
In the case of the latter: Mother's family
applies a balm of bark and pith,
which sometimes brings the sleeper back from "the land between".
Father's side
drains the blister
and keeps its fluid in a phial as antidote to dog bite
and complaints of the eye.

Tom Lux, from The Street of Clocks