“Home, Sick”

Home, Sick

Winter 1957

9 years old

Queens, New York

Zero degrees outside while cozy warm inside

Mother opens apartment’s bedroom window

reels in creaky clothesline of dried laundry

closes apartment’s bedroom window

and together we fall into fits of giggling

at shirts frozen suitably stiff for a mummy movie

and at blue jeans able to stand on their own

as if being worn by the Invisible Man

this silliness coming just hours after

that seriousness of her wicked witch-stalking

with a teaspoon in one shaking fist

and a jar of Syrup of Ipecac in the other.