In sickness and in health

Years later, the day’s definitively spent

in illness, in cradling a vaguely odd grudge

quite certain this isn’t how it is meant

to be - festive boiling down to the sludge

of sickrooms and maladies and medicine.

Temples where love’s expressed now quiet, passive;

a travesty of differently fevered skin,

grubbier shades of meaning to live festive,

the usual flowers forgotten, left to droop;

the petals of the hours shredding, wasting.

There are offerings of silence and soup,

unremarked and consumed without tasting,

till a brief, lucid break when the fever lifts -

what if this version is also a gift?