Twenty-Four, Sick, Which Was Enough

Last week: fourteen people,

a restaurant with a reservation,

a card with all their names in it —

different handwriting, different levels of effort.

I smiled and cut my food

and tried to feel the size of it.

I drove home thinking about twenty-four.

The chest infection that had moved in

like a tenant who paid nothing

and took up every room —

the kind of sick where your own face

in the mirror looks like a draft of yourself.

Half a bottle of wine I shouldn't have had.

A candle pushed into the top of a piece of toast

because I was not going to not have a candle.

The toast went soft around the base of it.

The wax dripped into the butter.

I lit it anyway.

One text from my mother:

still here.

Two words. No punctuation.

She'd been sick herself that year.

I knew what she meant —

not the birthday, not even me, just:

I am still in this,

and so are you.

I blew the candle out.

Ate the toast.

Fell asleep by nine.

Last week fourteen people.

Linen napkins.

I kept waiting for the moment

that felt like what the toast felt like.