I remind myself I have chosen this—
this lethargy, these aches, these chills,
I remind myself I paid
for this sore arm,
I paid for this chance to shiver.
I wanted the broken down parts
of the virus to enter my body,
wanted special molecules to make
my immune system stronger.
Oh Shingrix, you have done
what my husband, my mother
and my doctors cannot—
you have put me in bed before nine o’clock.
You are like a school marm
with gray hair pulled back tight
and a ruler in your hand
to smack my antibodies to attention.
When I do not get a painful, red blistered rash,
I will likely forget to thank you,
just as I forget to be grateful
when there is not a plague
of grasshoppers in the field,
forget to be grateful when I make dinner
without slicing off my fingertip,
forget to be grateful for the tire
that didn’t fall off of my car.
So I’m thanking you now,
now while I feel it, now when I’m aware
that a half milliliter of prevention
is worth seven pounds of rash free skin.
Thank you for stimulating my T cells.
Thank you for days when I will smooth
my hands across my thighs, my hips,
when I will trail my fingers across my ribs,
for nights when I will slip into soft cotton sheets
and never once think of you.
*
hey friends, I will be camping in the desert the next couple of nights, so no poems for a few days, then I will return with a small desert bouquet
