that evening
after chemo
her headache came.
i drove us
through the
eastern iowa hills
her head
in my lap,
hot with fever,
mumbling fever dreams.
i drove
up and down gravel roads,
dead ends,
farmers' driveways,
almost into the
black lip of a lake.
the low gas light
flashed,
we barely limped into williamsburg
to refuel.
i drove
and drove
until my back
locked up
the only prayer
to release it
was reciting the alphabet
backward over
and over
until a purple sun
up from the rolling east
baked her out of the fever dream.
she peed
behind a barn
and kissed my shoulder
with cracked
red lips.
_
Justin Hyde is a poet and Literary Editor for The Commonline Journal. He is the former Poetry Editor of Thieves Jargon and the author of the chapbooks Down Where the Hummingbird Goes to Die (2008) and Another Casualty at the 34th St. Bus Stop (2009). His last collection of poems is An Elephant Hole (2014, Interior Noise Press). He lives in Iowa and works with criminals.
after chemo
her headache came.
i drove us
through the
eastern iowa hills
her head
in my lap,
hot with fever,
mumbling fever dreams.
i drove
up and down gravel roads,
dead ends,
farmers' driveways,
almost into the
black lip of a lake.
the low gas light
flashed,
we barely limped into williamsburg
to refuel.
i drove
and drove
until my back
locked up
the only prayer
to release it
was reciting the alphabet
backward over
and over
until a purple sun
up from the rolling east
baked her out of the fever dream.
she peed
behind a barn
and kissed my shoulder
with cracked
red lips.
_
Justin Hyde is a poet and Literary Editor for The Commonline Journal. He is the former Poetry Editor of Thieves Jargon and the author of the chapbooks Down Where the Hummingbird Goes to Die (2008) and Another Casualty at the 34th St. Bus Stop (2009). His last collection of poems is An Elephant Hole (2014, Interior Noise Press). He lives in Iowa and works with criminals. 