Illness

Every time Canaletto painted Venice
he painted her from a different angle,

sometimes from points of view
he must have imagined,

for there is no place in the city
he could have stood to observe such scenes.

How ingenious of him to visualize
a dome or canal from any point in space.

How passionate he was
to delineate Venice from perspectives

that required him to mount the air
and levitate there with his floating brush.

But I have been sick in this bed 
for over sixty hours,

and I am not Canaletto,
and this airless little room,

with its broken ceiling fan
and its monstrous wallpaper, is not Venice.


Sick Room, by Billy Collins


Fortunately for me this room is not airless, and I have a kind spouse to bring me chicken noodle soup. Still, this is not how I looked forward to spending the weekend. My Covid test was negative, but then again it was negative at first when I caught it back in January.

Whatever it is, I feel awful.