The luxury of the common cold
This week I thought I’d bring you a poem I wrote a couple of months ago when I was sick. It was going to come to you back in September, but then Marcellus Williams was killed by the State of Missouri.
The Luxury of the common cold
My bed
is a fortress of blankets
pillows and lozenges
litter the tabletop next to discarded cups of tea
At night my stuffy nose keeps me awake
I shuffle to the bathroom for more tissues and Vicks
Even my cold is embarrassed
by its existence
in the face of the missing limbs
Of tents
made of sheets and ripped canvas
leaking rain through the fabric of their roof.
We humans are not birds
meant for the elements
are not the strawberries
we used to plant
the mallow leaves
chopped up by a khalto
for a stew
back when the fields were whole.
We cannot swim in the rain
Shedding the layers of our wet skin
to grow into newness.
No.
We are allowed the want of dryness, of softness.
The luxury of a common cold.
A cup of tea just because
and silence.
We are entitled
a moment to be weak.
a moment to live as humans, not the heroes
we’ve been forced to become.
I’m continuing to share resources on Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. Today, I’m sharing clips from the testimony in UK parliament of British surgeon Nizam Mamode, who recently returned from a period of working at Nasser Hospital in Gaza.
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“We are entitled
a moment to be weak.”
Sigh.
Thank you. ♥️