Child Fever

She keeps her mannerisms
she keeps her constant chatter
despite the dark eye ringed, pale, hot face
back, this same stone cold clasp in my heart
the need to take her reeling fever into myself
the need to tear open remedies, real and imagined
to wring out towels of bile and pain
and stroke the hot forehead next to me
watching Disney
watching breathing like a paranoid newborn's mother
until the morning birds wake