Eclipse of the Moon by Mary Susanah Robbins - HTML preview

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the cold epidemic

 

 — remembering a therapist friend who

said that having a cold was needing to cry

 

everybody needs to cry

to exhale a grief violently, spasmodically

everybody needs to sneeze

membranes weeping, tear ducts in anguish

everybody needs to

blow the nose and begin again,

"ahh-choo! I need to — ahh-choo!

call the — ahh-choo! I'll feel better

with some — ahh-choo! ahh-choo!"

explosive grief wracks the town

kleenex sales have boomed

pharmacists can't stock enough Dristan

only the pharmacists are happy, saying,

"people can't seem to shake their —

ahh-choo! — this winter

we're cleaning up

as long as people go on

expressing their grief

loudly, vehemently

as long as their heads continue to split

and their fevers to rise

as long as they shake with chill

as long as they turn to us

we will supply them —

ahh-choo — with comfort

take two of these

and go to bed with your grief

it's so comforting

to lie there in the bosom

of your desire

which is sound asleep."

 

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