Sick at the Gulf

Poisoned perhaps. Last night's catch-of-the-day

with sauce Béarnaise. Or imagine something worse-

those plagues transmitted by intermediary host.

It's possible. We traipsed every slough, ridge

and flat of the wildlife refuge. Mosquitoes.

Surely fleas and ticks. You suggest just a virus

and with Pepto Bismol alarm dissipates

into a fevered hush. Immobilized, propped

on condo terrace, I look to sea in mild pathos

and think Chekhovian: stricken heroine

sent to the Crimea's sunny winter

for her health. Unhappy exile in Yalta's

lush heat, cypresses, palms-but snow

enters her dreams, white grounds,

white roofs, birches white with rime.

Feeling better? is your offered optimism,

along with an icy drink, but her answer

is falling away and you cannot hear

her wish to return to the capital

where she has many admirers.

In grief and ecstasy she burns

like a reckless comet, unlucky and luminous.