Walking Pneumonia: A Working Class Sick Femme Prayer

Soak your chest in Vicks, girl.

Shoplift some oil of oregano.

Thyme in boiling water, put a saucer over the top. It’ll bring out that golden oil. Honey

Get that phlegm up.

Mucinex, yes—it’s a wonder drug, it came from an herb from a country some of us come from.

But mostly, rest. You can’t do “just a little bit of work.” You can’t “go on just a short plane ride.”

A roasted onion and some mustard in a compress on your chest.

It’s cheap. Hit the $15 community acupuncture clinic. They will tell you to rest.

There’s a real risk of walking pneumonia. But you knew that.

We walk through pneumonia all the time. We walk and roll through every damn thing. Yeah, I know it’s connected to grief. There will be more.

Chest aching from the barking cough. Mountain of pillows.

Chicken soup in the freezer. Cedar tea from the corner tree:

I’ve been there. I can working class-femme-MacGyver my way through any sick and tired.

Make it to and through the airport with my inhaler, cane, Claritin, and Yin Chiao. Then my body collapsed, insisted I rest.

Working class femme lungs spread like aching, congested butterflies, wings beating but slow, slathered with every home remedy but rest.