Recovery
We’re friends now.
Tonight, at a parents’ meeting, we stand
together, just like we used to.
Spring sports practice is starting.
Forms need to be signed.
I ask him about his mother—heard she was sick.
Standing this close, the familiar smell of him
reminds me I was young once. My throat tightens.
I begin squeezing odd things in my pockets.
His mother, he says, has the shingles virus, isn’t doing
very well. I tell him I’m sorry, that I know how painful
that illness is. He looks at me, quizzically.
Were you with me . . . when you had it?
Yep, I was… – stop myself
from repeating all things already said
late at night, after the kids have gone to bed.
Heading home alone, rain is pouring,
wipers barely keeping up.
I touch the pockmarks above my
right eye, where the sores left scars,
run my fingertip
along the small indentations on my skin,
over what’s left of me.