Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MY KNEECAPS ARE SWEATING AT 4 AM, by JUDITH STRASSER First Line: And I read this as good, a sign Subject(s): Mothers & Sons; Sickness; Illness | ||||||||
and I read this as good, a sign the disease has decided to leave although I discover the damp spots on the underside of the comforter when I wake with a wracking cough that I worry will worry my son the way I worried when every cough in his first three years moved into his lungs until his doctor asked did I taste salt when I kissed him and ran tests for cystic fibrosis. Waiting, I stared at the pamphlet, words about lungs, short lives, how to pound chest and back to loosen infected pflegm. His death seemed more likely than my own despite my night sweats, swollen nodes, dry cough, the metallic chemo taste that invaded my nose and tongue. It was one big false alarm. I lived to see him through high school. He outgrew the recurrent pneumonias, though the fevers marked his teeth, spots the enamel doesn't shield. I worry now he'll fall asleep driving to college, be mugged on the subway near his dorm, collide with a tree on the night-lit slopes at Vail. I worry he'll never find love. When morning comes, my eyes are clear for the first time in a week, I can stand and my head doesn't throb, the gland in my neck is tender, but smaller, the virus seems to be going, maybe it's almost gone. I strip off the comforter cover and haul it down to the wash. Over juice, he asks how I'm feeling, and I say, fine, and it's a day I don't worry that he will worry about being a motherless child. Copyright © Judith Strasser. http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm Prairie Schooner is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the campus-based literary journals. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SICK CHILD by RANDALL JARRELL AFTERNOON AT MACDOWELL by JANE KENYON HAVING IT OUT WITH MELANCHOLY by JANE KENYON SONNET: 9. HOPE by WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS DAY (2) by JOHN BYROM TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF THE HALIBUT ON WHICH I DINED by WILLIAM COWPER |
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