The flu came to sit with me last week,

and when I am sick,

and my body aches and runs amok,

and my mind struggles to be clear,

I think sometimes of the awful beauty of death,

I close my eyes and feel my spinning head,

I lie down on golden sands,

by a roaring ocean, I hear the mournful gulls crying to me,

I can smell the wildflowers on the dune,

the cardinals and bayberry and rose plums,

my lover’s hand is in mine,

I watch the ships on the horizon moving  purposefully,

I am lost in the world of imagination,

who could possibly find me,

or text me, or tell me what to do, or what is due.

I can hardly move, drifting in a sweet

and fevered daze, and it occurs to me,

My world suddenly is so simple,

so pure, I am stripped down to my pure soul,

I have always thought about it, wondered what it was like,

in my childhood I was sent to find the answers to a thousand questions,

I drowned in them, in my bed I am free to leave all that behind,

I take off my shoes and socks,

my shirt and belt and sweater, I go on, happily,

into the wind, into the dunes through the grass,

my hands and feet are warm and dry,

my heart at peace with itself,

my ears chained to the drum and flute of life and death,

the small gull with the large beak calls out to me

again and again and again, it seems he has the answers I have been seeking,

all this time,

I can just listen to him.