This cold I caught
from my hero—
I don’t want to lose it.
Yes, foggy-headed
and feverish, but
I know what it means
to be zip-tied
to an elegant machine,
to have the blue lines
of your wrist
pulse against
a delivery system
for brilliance.
My hero is so nice,
aflame with vile ideas
and their antidotes.
The cold, though,
drizzles on.
I try not to sleep
for fear of waking free
without whistles
or holy wheezes
from my own
unremarkable lungs.
Hoping for health
seems senseless now,
our illnesses proof
we’ve been touched.
THE DREAM SELF & THE WAKING SELF FILE FOR DIVORCE
You said the seas of silence,
but I thought you said the Caesar salad,
so the marriage failed.
I was so concrete,
and you with the confetti of stars
always in your hair.
You call to say you can
still hear me late at night, misunderstanding
the whole notion of sleep.
Rob MacDonald lives in Boston and is the editor of Sixth Finch. His poems can be found in Gulf Coast, DIAGRAM, Whiskey Island, Birdfeast, Octopus, Everyday Genius, H_NGM_N and other journals. He has books forthcoming from Rye House Press and Racing Form Press.