Convalescence

When you taste sick,
iron from lamb's blood,
sour mash filling your mouth,
you feel what your hands
feel after dropping something,
as on the first day
you reached for the table
to still yourself and found them
quaking like boiled water.

What you miss most is touching
the things in the other room,
and the color, of course,
the reason you moved back to
New York: fall leaves. The cardinals,
the brick walls you repaired.
The amaryllis flowers
and the sunset that are blossoming
black as we speak.

-- Tung-Hui Hu