Sick Bed Poem by Rochelle Potkar

Not remembering sleep or the winter of her skin
she dozes and wakes, taking away your burning
with the single-most thought of
salt-water towels on your back and forehead
like a long distance map
laid out
of a hypnotic train journey.

You lucidly remember, an ancient time machine
from a comic book, a video game,
swallowing the bitter pill of a full moon,
the weight of prickly-heat stars, swollen universes,
summer falling and rising through your body.

Brewing sweat,
you both are crossing the river of the night
the slow boiling of time through her torn eyes,
peeling away the mercury of your ochre skin.

The morning melts on its faint blue ledge
as she pushes a sunrise-egg down her throat
so she can go on for day 2
of a mother's marathon against a viral,

as you inhale stale eau-de-cologne off your shirt,
in the bird cage of your frail body.