~
Sonnet (Mercy)
My youngest burned w/fever & I
rocked him, imagining his skin changing
colors as the heat flared. First, pink then red, then
color of a wound crusted over. When the medicine
cooled him down, I laid the baby in his crib and
paced the hall. It’s a thick night in the suburbs.
There are loud voices in the walls.
Even in the dark, I think of you, though
there’s no room for you here. I know right
& wrong, and am slipping somewhere in
between. We could never live together, but
for a minute, just take me to the place where
the trees smell like Prozac and the birds
cough little clouds of beer.
~
Justin Lacour
Justin Lacour lives in New Orleans and edits Trampoline: A Journal of Poetry. His chapbook My Heart is Shaped Like a Bed: 46 Sonnets is forthcoming from Fjords Review.