Sick Bed Care
By John Grey
What remains of
the first days of marriage.
Memory fights various diseases
for the rights to the brain,
the tongue.
It obsesses on where and
who we were.
It informs me she does not just
bend over the sick bed,
administering to this ragged cold
with hot soup,
and thick syrupy medicines.
It is not all care;
there's passion.
It's not just love
as a nurse might feel
toward her gift of healing.
I'm an astronomer
at fever's window,
occasionally glimpsing shooting stars.
Here is a run through the park.
There a hug
in a cheap apartment.
I can smile as I recall
species of life that can survive
in beds of death.
It's an astonishing thing
to have married someone, I'm thinking.
It's like having this permanent flashlight
to turn on the past and illuminate it,
to shine in her concerned face
and see time.
In between bouts of burning pain,
muscle cramp,
I have a wife.
Discovery steers recognition
with the hand that swabs my brow.