MEDICINE

Blue elderberry syrup 

slides from measuring cup
to warm mug. I turn up
the bottle of wildflower honey
and squeeze a glassy stream,
while pockets of peppermint tea
soak, sink, bleed and steam,
my spoon spinning a gold green.

I beg my daughter to sit and open
her mouth and take her medicine.
She puts them in
then takes them out: three little pills

on a flat piece of porcelain,
an archipelago in a cloudy spit puddle,

I dry them with a cotton cloth napkin.
Please sit and take this medicine.

Fevers, coughs, pediatric doctors,
far too many lamplit sleepless hours,
that I imagine hiding us at this house
beside the dirt, hills, and woods
clean and cluttered and close
with mugs, music, walks and paper books:
maps of paths, of people, places
stories on pasteurized paper pages.