Incurable Illness

//incruable illness

She didn’t drink or smoke,
did yoga, t’ai chi,
and jogged,
stayed slender,
used sunblock,
whatever........
At first she wept
endlessly, tears leaked,
ran down her cheeks.
She pulled her quilts tight
at night, curled fetally,
felt perpetually the feeling she’d now and
then had as a child, of being ill
enough to stay in bed a spell,
with warm and crumpled sheets,
missing school, worrying about school work.
Since becoming a mother,
she'd almost never been sick.
She's gotten used to it, though,
the way you do.

At first, only her family knew.
Her husband, a good man, said,
“It’s a privilege,
a pleasure,
to take care of you.”
He helps her endlessly.
The kids don't understand
her limitations.
Some friends are still her friends.
Others query awkwardly, "How ARE you?”
They really don't know what to say.
She knows they mean well, but
she wants to forget
for an hour or two.
She wants to say,
“I’m still me.
Roses nod in my garden.
My husband loves me still.
I’m reading a good book.
We’re having apricots
from our tree for dessert tonight.
The kids are doing well.
(Knock Wood).
The moments she treasures
are the moments she forgets,
meets herself again.