Because we think I might have it,
I take the couch. I can count on one hand
the times we have ever slept apart
under the same roof in our five years,

and those usually involved something
much worse than this sort of impenetrable
cough, the general misery involved
with dopey nausea, these vague chills.

But this time, we can’t risk it—our small son
still breathes clear-light in the next room
and we can’t afford to be both laid
up on our backs with a box of tissues

at our sides. Especially now that I carry
a small grapefruit, a second son inside me.
On the couch, I fever for your strong calves,
your nightsong breath on my neck,

and depending where we end up—wrist
or knee. I fever for the slip of straps down
my shoulder, I fever for the prickled pain
of lip-bite and bed burn. I get up and come

back to bed. We decide it is worth it. I wish
my name meant wing. The child still forming
inside me fevers for quiet, the silence of the after,
the silence of cell-bloom within our blood.