What Disperses, Gathers

Being sick's the opposite
Of swimming in the deep lake.
Instead of all aches floating
Away on the waves, they come
Like crows, increasingly
Dense shadows crowding my bones,
And I can't get off the shore.

Quick words exist in the mouth;
Slow words exit, too, from books.
The writer, compositor
Of squiggles and text, is sick
And on the shore, nostalgic
For more temporary waves.
The crows are precise and real.