April 28 The Corner Room Upstairs

A wall slants overhead
Cabbage rose, water stained

my ears ache hot against
a cool cotton pillowcase

in this slim single bed
its knotted white coverlet

walnut lamp–stand
where Mama’s grandmother

Martha kept her teeth
in a cup that now holds

a glass of water
a yellow thermometer.

A jar of Vicks Vapo-Rub
Mentholates the air.

The whole of the small
room floats in wavery

twilight swimming
through a dormered

window facing west
and with that,

a river tug bellows.
a train whistles.

The audible clattering of
wheels on steel

thrums to the pulse
of the drumming

in my head, the acrid
smell of hot axel grease

catfish mud, and the
mashed potatoes I left at the

dinner table downstairs
where the grownups

murmer and ignore
the sounds of my sickness.

I am small, but
I wonder

If dying feels like this:
nightbirds pulling me

to the window and the
waters beyond,

leaving my fevers on the pillow with barely
an imprint, without saying goodbye.