Feed a Fever

Feed a Fever

(read aloud if you push play above).

I’m the fire
rising in the throat of the robin
at the top of the pine, alight with dusk
head back, singing the night in
brave as bloodroot
pale petals open to everything. 

I’m burning like a barn
full of hay and five generations of private moments, 
in the loft, in the stall, warm bodies come and go
and are gone.

My sap’s about to scald
It’s spring fever, they say
It’s going around.
Feed a fever, starve a cold, they say
So I swig hot sauce, pacing around, the fridge door left open.

I smell the mustard greens singeing a hole through the snow
I sprint to the garden and pack them in my mouth
I pinch cayenne into my water 
I don’t want to cool down.

I quit walking and lunge everywhere I go
I put twelve birdseye chilies in a pot with lamb bones
massaged the meat with Szechuan, for numbing, 
so I can get the fire into my blood without charring my tongue.

I ate a bowl of this three nights in a row
and the fever dreams dog-whistled with woodcock outside my window 
Rising, everything rising 
All my seeds sprouted on the full worm moon
The river devoured its banks.

I learn that aphids give live birth to aphids giving live birth 
Like Christ, but twice, and without the piety
I toss and turn
I sweat, I sweat to soak the sheets
With eagerness for what this might mean 

The possibilities 
of a womb always full
a fire always lit. 
If you get it, then it aint god, they say
you can save your soul but not your life.
If there’s a second, a third, already in you, then
Why not burn at both ends

I’m running for it 
I race the dog up the hill 
Finally trying to keep up. 

I thought this fever felt familiar, so I looked back, and wouldn’t you know it, I get hot flashes every year, just on the cusp of spring.

Last year’s was a little more saucy, a little more weighty than rising, but feverish nonetheless. Hope you guys are starting to warm up, too.

I made a snowy Sunday bolognese. I browned the meat and organs of many mammals and birds. I poured in the stock of summer chickens, jars of September tomatoes, pickled August peppers, and handfuls of wild herbs and spices. I spent the whole day smelling it before I got a taste of what it really was. It was my first bolognese and we really, really hit it off, so I’ve been denned up with tagliatelle for three days straight like a new bad habit.
Like with any bad habit I’m committed to - I doubled down - with garlic bread. Yes there was salad but it was really only acting like a palette cleanser so I could taste the sauce again like it was the first time.
That night, I tossed and turned in some kind of sugar fire fever dream where I was trying to walk but my arms were overflowing with a pile of breads and sweet treats and the only way for me to carry them all was to start eating. I was bringing a cupcake toward my mouth when I woke up sweating - I’m pretty sure that’s where I died. I ran the ol gut furnace so hot on shotty fuel I spent the next day stubbing my toes and holding my side and trying to remember even one good thing about me but when the sun had set there was no “what’s for dinner” - I had known since noon I was going to do it all again.
Anyways what I’m trying to say is this bolognese stuff is good enough to make me punish myself for it. I am wondering though, what can I eat it with besides these noodles that my mouth can’t say no to but my body doesn’t process so cleanly? Or is this a cardinal sin to even consider? If so, I pray forgiveness from the pasta grannies and hope they bless me with some of those supple slender stretchy glutinous genes that let me eat pasta every day and live spritely and smiling past one hundred. Someone please tell me what’s a Scottish girl to do with so much sauce?