Summer Flu

A running nose in hunderd degree heat

Sweating and crawling, my skin is alien flesh

Plugged ears when the elevation shifts five feet or more

And the queasy growling under my naval

It's the summer flu

What did I eat?

Who do I know that can't get out of bed?

Who did I kiss?

What will I do as I toss in perspiration sheets?

These are the the mysteries of the summer flu

There's only one thing

To lay prone

And another thing, drink fluids

Starve your fever, or is it, feed it?

Every problem in the world 

Is in your body, unavoidable

In the summer flu

Nobody else cares, until you give it to them

Nobody remembers except to say, "ew, stand over there",

What it was like the last time

Their body contained every worldly problem

But they can't escape it, the hot, clingy, sticky, crawly 

Virus of the summer flu

Five minutes, an hour, then two

Half a day, then night, and still here

Still floating up and over into the night

And morning, it should be gone

Sniffling stuffed up sinus-jammed breathing

Or not

It's all over when you cough and rattle

The bass note serenade of the summer flu

--that's what it has been like these past three days. It occurred to me that I've only had one or two summer flu's. They are worse than the usual mid-winter bug in that they seem to be more reckless. Germs with bermuda shorts and hibachi's on vacation in my blood stream. Can't wait for them to pack up and go home. Perhaps this is what Oregonians think of us here in California as we invade during the mosquito months. I wonder...