The Best Medicine

With the room spinning around me

I clutch the bedsheets tight in fevered hands,

sweating, yet freezing cold.

Can I get you anything? my wife asks.

I need, I mutter, p-p…

Painkillers? She suggests.

No, I need p-p…

A prescription? Should I call the doctor?

No, I need p-p…

Pillows? Do you need more pillows

to prop you up?

I gesture to the thin book on the night-stand

pointing frantically,

like a man stranded on a desert island

waving for rescue.

Poetry, I say,

I need poetry.