Flu

My lover hasn’t been in the pinkest of health recently and in a sympathetic mood I called up an oldie to share with him:

Laid low, not by la belle dame
but a virus sans merci
I alternate between heat
and shivering clamminess
so that sleep eludes me
with an ache so unbearable
It leaves me trembling, wearied
Until I give in, reach out
For that panacea, one little pill
that sends me drowsily Lethe-ward
to dream of an angelic nightingale,
abandon my body to what she will
even as wingèd Morpheus watches on
and softly weaves his soporific spell.