Beside our daughter

        all night

        Tan Yi and I hold tiny arms steady

        to keep the IV’s in—

        her head a solar bench.

        I think about the bed across

        from ours, the infant

        with fever for a week

        going beyond heat, beyond

        sleep, tumbling

        from her mother's lap

        into the easy breeze

        of space

        then the young mother,

        bosom still happy with milk,

        rolling the body

        to the foot of the bed,

        then looking back

        and gazing

        at the ring of sweat.

        

Copyright © Kevin Dobbs, 2005. All Rights Reserved.