Except for my mom
who brushes the hair
from my forehead
and rests her hand there
checking for a fever
without telling me
she’s checking for a fever
as I lay on her couch
just like she used to do
when I was young and sick. Now
we’re just a couple of old ladies
with so many aches and pains
there aren’t enough fingers
on both our hands
to point to where it hurts.
I sit in the chair
by the window
in the morning
breathing in and out
the machines all around me
doing god’s work
and by that I mean
promising to make me
all better. From here
I can see my daughter
she is trying to put
a headband on the dog
and laughing and laughing
as he refuses. Somewhere
it is just beginning
to be nighttime
somewhere someone
is laying down
next to someone they think
they love, and hopefully
that person still thinks
they love them too.
Maybe this is also
god’s work, how
we choose to believe
the thing
in order for the thing
to be true.
Erin Evans is a poet with Cystic Fibrosis. Poems of hers are published or forthcoming in journals such as Defunct, Molecule, A Mouthful of Salt, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Potomac Review, and in The Poetry Foundation’s American Life in Poetry.