I have a fever and its name is God.
The nurses come in shifts
and worship it.
All around me the land suffers
from the loss of love’s handkerchief.
Children sing brackish rhymes
in the lowest schools.
There is no key, only
the locked door
projected onto the city wall.
In my dreams I run from it.
The nurses bandage my body
in mathematical problems
I can’t solve. I tell them
no, no, measure me
by the sweetness of honey—
Hush, they whisper.
Our names, too, are written
in the Book of the Smallest Moon.
You were brought here
in the traitors’ black ambulance.
Your brother is a scar.
The nurses place bowls of fruit
around my prone body,
as sacrifices. Not to you, they explain,
but to the heat you bear.
Finally I stumble
through the image of the door
in broad daylight. No one stops me.
I am prescient as a lilac.
But the nurses say
We will never leave you.
They have prepared a feast,
they have sewn my wedding garment.
There are so many of them,
far too many to count.
Each of them lifts a piece of me
to her mouth—
By the sweetness of honey.
Let I and my works be undone.
To read more poetry by G.C. Waldrep, purchase issue 27.2 here.