In honor of the rampant, relentless flu season that is already adding to Coastal Georgia’s misery alongside potential snowfall set to arrive this weekend (seriously, Weather Channel, what on Earth is going on???) here are some poems that deal with the subject of illness, sickness, or recovery. Stay warm, folks, and do stock up on Vicks VapoRub and chicken broth; and also: try to find a choice novel and/or television series to keep you entertained as well. (Heated Rivalry, anyone?)

The Rest, Jane Huffman 

Still, I keep myself, I take to bed. One lung is red. Cut red flowers hung in pink water.

My other lung is out of line.

From one lung, I tell the truth.

From the other lung, I lie.

Cut pink flowers hung in red water. Like a pain, the truth is mine.

The lie is that today I want to die.

Cut red water hung in pink flowers. The rest of it is stillness, rest.

A soft cough into a hard pan.

A hard cough into a soft plane.

Cut pink water hung in red flowers.

In the Hospital Chen Chen My mother was in the hospital & everyone wanted to be my friend.

But I was busy making a list: good dog, bad citizen, short skeleton, tall mocha. Typical Tuesday.

My mother was in the hospital & no one wanted to be her friend.

Everyone wanted to be soft cooing sympathies. Very reasonable pigeons. No one had the time & our solution to it was o buy shinier watches. We were enamored with what our wrists could declare. My mother was in the hospital & I didn’t want to be her friend. Typical son. Tall latte, short tale, bad plot, great wifi in the atypical café.

My mother was in the hospital & she didn’t want to be her friend. She wanted to be the family grocery list. Low-fat yogurt, firm tofu.

She didn’t trust my father to be it. You always forget something, she said, even when I do the list for you. Even then.

Revenant, Meena Alexander

 This disease has come back With frills and furbelows.

You must give your whole life to poetry Only a few survive if that— Poems I mean, paper crumpled Shades of another water— Far springs are what you long for, Listening for the slow drip of chemicals Through a hole in your chest.

If you were torn from me I could not bear what the earth had to offer.

To be well again, what might that mean? The flowering plum sprung from late snow, Ratcheting trill in the blackberry bush Blood streaks, pluck and throb of mercy.

Andrea Gutierrez is the editor of the Bryan County News