Cribbed and Counting
Anna Wagner

IMAGE: Jack Dunnett
Anna Wagner is a graduate from Hamline University’s Creative Writing Program. Her work has previously been published in Fulcrum Journal
and Eastern Iowa Review with nominations for Best of the Net, Best American Essays, and a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Minnesota and wishes it was sunny everyday.
We sit on the bed, cribbage pieces
replaced with paper clips, and the board lies
between us.
There is a sun sinking
behind the curtains, a sky
we haven’t touched
for eighteen days.
I almost forget
we are sick.
Fifteen two,
fifteen four,
fifteen six.
We try to tame fevers like red foxes.
They run for weeks, and I think
about pressing our burning bodies
together. To be over
two hundred degrees,
which is enough
to deactivate
a different
sickness. I reach
for any answer.
Pyrexia isn’t meant
to last
like this. He counts his crib while I count
Tylenol tablets. We wash them down
with lemonade we can’t taste.
A symptom named
ageusia. Another game
we’ve had to play
for eighteen days.
I almost forget
we are sick.
Fifteen two,
fifteen four,
fifteen six.
