Thetis

Not a rite-of-passage rash-and-fever, not a week eating ice cream

on the sofa,

this was not chickenpox but a biblical plague

the month before he turned two, his skinny frame covered entire

with penny-sized bulbs sagging, fat with neon green pus,

as though he had been mummified in bubble wrap, victim

of the world’s bees,

skin around the pustules souffléd with red welts, coat of

monstrous nipples.

I was furious, convinced the pox was an intelligence,

as if it had divined by vengeful will

not only to smother his skin in sores but the insides, too –

I could not bear to hear him scream

each time he passed the drops of water we managed to smuggle by

the flames in his throat.

In the hospital I cradled him

to my eight-month-ripened body, the night and his fever terrifying,

a stand-off with wolves on a treeless plain.

I had believed his birth had finally split the

world wide open

to show me the precise flesh and wit of horror, formed a shell

around me that makes child’s play of pain –

but I had forgotten

that a species of pain rises up in giving birth that is lord above

all others,

persuades dominion of my heart, rules penitence, makes me kneel.

Lord of inflicting my son, lord of hurting him

even in his tender places, lord of stealing his breath,

I who thought I had conquered all by giving life

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