Cold Medicine Speaking

It is the cold medicine speaking,
your mind not quite in control of itself,
seeing the tangle of wires above you,
not as an eyesore, but as some modern art beauty,
a message perhaps,
of traveling and power,
of transformation.

Everything moves slower,
no less certain than when
you basked in health a few days ago,
when things made sense,
whether you liked them or not.

And now?
Now you are traveling,
the sky alternately gray with clouds
or a screaming blue vibrancy
as if they too were infected
and the fever changed their landscape
as often as
it changes yours,

making you find God as easily
as passion, where fantasy tantalized, dances
just out of reach, where
you are not sure
whether to take the next round of medicine,
or not.

About This Poem.

I am on a train. I have a cold. I am writing poetry. Somehow, these three things are related. Don’ ask me how – I took the cold medicine.

The picture was taken in Pawlet, VT. I was well when I took it.

Tom