Hug Like CornBread

Hugs Like CornBread

Waiting before the coffee spits on,
lying on the blue with the pillow tucked in,
holding to some hope of enjoying the dawn,
inching up from fluttered sleep, barely happy,
halfway living.

I will wait, I will still, for the strength to gain the days
I’ve missed locked inside the pain. I’m a limper, squinter,
with capacity depleted,
common joy deleted.

I’m offered one remedy after the next,
friendly gestures, but wheelbarrow loads of mortar
sealing my smile shut (I must stay silent the next
prescription given by well-meaning non-physicians).

“Why aren’t our prayers answered”, other good-hearts ask me,
(at least these aren’t the ones more concerned about their
spiritual batting average than the object of their petition)
Don’t fix me: you can’t. Just love me: hug the moment
and my pain, learn the holy, the adult refrain that
lets the thoughts of the lonely walk away whistling
for another half day.

Leave me feeling like cornbread and honey,
don’t advise me or give or give me your physician’s name;
Pray me like caramel sweet,
lift my pain-weighted body of its feet for a hour,
take me away to the beach and say we’ll stay only a second
or the rest of the day. Ask me, give me, offer me,
you with suggestions or recommendations.

When your days of pain come round like
hot tar and smothered gasping, I promise to
be the first to bring your favorite dessert
and leave it on your doorstep
or
stay all afternoon.

And if you look on your doorknob, there will not be the latest
article clipped from my search of

Your disease.