Joseph D Milosch

Coated with Sweat

I burst into an excessive coughing fit.
My fever hurts my eyes like the sun,
glittering on the glass door
of my stateroom.

By noon, my ears are full of murmurs.
I write. I stop. I sleep.
I write. Nothing is legible.
My fever breaks. The nurse calls.

I answer then fall into a dream
where leaves and burls become a tree
that bees build their hive in. They flit in
and out of it as Blue Jays come and go.

Waking, I sip water and ask myself
if I believe in the power of dreams.
No. I believe in the leaping impulse
of waves. Believe in the tenacity of deep water.

Believe in the perpetually breaking and falling
of the wake that my ship creates. I believe
in the space between sickness and health
that is as vast as the sky outside my window.