It was a clear
plastic tarp
draped over
aluminum poles
framing the head of
his bed
with a flap in
front
that he would crawl
through
and close when he
got inside. I always
wanted to go in but
wasn’t allowed
because of the
medicine my mom injected
into a glass jar
that dripped,
making a mist. I remember my brother
sitting inside
smiling, as a cloud began
to swirl around him
like smoke drifting
up, growing thick.
As I lay in my bed
across from his,
I would watch him
slowly disappear.
Though I could see
his legs moving
beneath the blanket
I could not
talk to him,
because the machine
that blew the mist
hummed loudly
on the bare floor
beside the bed. And I thought
heaven must be like that —
separated by a thin membrane
where whole neighborhoods lived
in a cloudy mist.
Mary Crosby is a Lecturer in Writing & Literature at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey. She has poetry published or forthcoming in The Edison Literary Review, Literary Mama and Calyx, among others.