[Source]

You feel the fever
the morning after
the strangers leave,
engorged by their suckling
of your life sap.
The gift they leave
is the delirium. Dry skin,
heavy head and the shivers;
the sense of warped time
and a bubble of discomfort
They rob the future
of the joy of present presence-
one dies every minute
but for those who escape
there is only the
burning burden
of relief.
—
For World Malaria Day… And the one child every minute stolen from our future by the disease.