Waiting for Fever to Break

by Mandy Brown

You, man in my marrow, gave yourself
away in waves until you had no breath left.
Now, we endure apart because we must

Set these bones right, quarantine our traumas,
else we’ll grow crooked and still ache
before the rains. I have been this storm too. 

So I am cross-stitching sigils, praying
you gasp again. Turn toward my voice full
of floodlights, for I am recasting your wedding

ring, a book of poetry hoping it will be finished
before we are. I am mapping—by memory—
freckles in your arms so I can draw how they fit

around me. I am blooming a beacon, a fist
full of stars, so you can come to the place
I still set for you at the table in my heart.

* * * * *

Mandy Brown (she/her) is a queer Central Texas poet, a 2019 Poetry Half-Marathon winner, and the 2013 recipient of A Room of Her Own Foundation's Tillie Olsen Fellowship. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Writers Resist, Eunoia Review, and more. Mandy teaches at an alternative school for high-risk students and loves it! Read more at mandyalyssbrown.weebly.com.