Today I sit on the sun porch
with my body, just the two of us
for a change, the flu
having left me for someone else.
I'm thinking about how good it is
to have been sick, to have been turned
inside out.
Until we are sick, says Keats,
we understand not. and for four or five days
I understood. Fully and completely.
There was absolutely no ambiguity,
no misunderstandings of any sort whatsoever.
For awhile I thought I'd never get better.
I'd be that sick eagle, staring at the sky
on a permanent basis. But
we're living in the age of miracles:
another jetliner smacked into New York,
only this time nobody got hurt. A black guy
thoroughly fumigated the White House.
And this morning I woke up
feeling like a little French village
the Nazis suddenly decided to pull out of
after a particularly cruel occupation.
The baker has come back to his store
and everything smells like warm baguettes.
The children are playing in the schoolyard,
the piano bars along the river
have thrown open their doors.
And here you are, with coffee
and an open blouse, and two cool breasts
from the land of joy.
"Joy" by George Bilgere, from
The White Museum. © Autumn House Press, 2010. Reprinted with permission. (
buy now)
This poem might be a little self-referential, but I enjoyed it and thought you might too.
