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Flu

If I could but linger all day in bed
drinking tea and medicinal whiskey
no more than is good take sudafed
and capture great sneezes in clean, white linen handkies
gorge my cold like a robin her brood
on broth stewn with bits of chicken
or curd with honey drizzle, that preferred
on shivery, brief trips to the kitchen
scratch in the tablet of the frosted pane
as my fingertip goes numb
some couplet of Ovids' or Verlaines'
that straightway dissolves and down the window runs
then climb to the parapet of my pillow again
browse travelogues and dream
of the beaches of Carossal or plage de Saline
I should be the happiest of men.

But I can't so I rise like Lazarus
reluctant to be summoned from the dead
thick with the afflictions of my flux
and irked to have to go to work instead;
spread bed sheets out all wet with sweat
command myself to the shower
(how warm it seems for how cold it was)
and reach for the door with a lour.

But neither is the flu a malingerer
for dressed and waiting at the door
as I leave, with its flies eyes and its mentholator
it coughs-and we descend the stairs together.

poem by Robert Dickerson
Added by Poetry Lover
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