| DOWN WITH FEVER. Spent the day on my back. Woke this morning,
sweating. Sound of the washing machine spinning. K builds with
blocks. Waylon nests in his bouncy chair. Drifting between wakefulness
and sleep, a deer’s jeweled guts glistened. A man cut at the legs until
they could be torn from the socket. He made a pile of them in the soft
dirt where shadows played and a pool of blood trickled off. Very lovely
to look at, I thought, seeing nothing sinister in the butchery. And in
a derelict garden space, I watched a night heron hunt fish in a creek
bed. Its russet neck and dark blue topside made its orange legs stand
out bright and startling. Dipped its beak in brown water, coming up
with a single minnow each time. Later, I look online at the news. That
Mesopotamian mess. Burn the people of the Book. Fry their flesh.
Helpless in the twilight sleep of fever dreams, I watched gore go down.
Some membrane—geographical distance. It’s a thin space if the mind’s
tweaked right. Legbra, listen. Tell ol’ Nobadaddy to beat it. Ahab’s
whale ain’t goin’ nowhere. Okay, look. My fist’s balled up with sheets.
My body aches. Bury the Book in black rock—Al-Khuds, Roma,
Mecca. Get a new In the beginning….
|
(Down with Fever)
