‍ ‍he tasted his mother’s medicine

My lips touch the water and the water turns black.
I glance at the wolf and her coat turns to flies.

I glance at the wolf. Her coat turns to flies,
baring a mother spent and a boy asleep.

The day spent, I drifted asleep to your voice:
Lie between the ghosts and your brother. Let him sleep.

I lay between the ghosts and my brother. He slept
soft, never shivered when the shadows passed.

Softly, I shivered in your shadow. Possessed
by fever, red breaths, seawater throat—

each breath flamed my red throat. You brought me salt water
to gargle, kissed me where my back meets my neck.

The mother kisses the back of the boy’s neck
as a black river empties from his lips.