My voice has been borrowed lately,
               hoarse and cracked
          like a bad radio signal.

Friday scratched my throat raw—
          sleep thin as tissue,
      sinuses staging a mutiny.

Saturday, CVS at dawn—
          Aleve for the ache,
          Mucinex Fast-Max DM (double-dosed)
          and enough Bloody Marys on flight 1606

          to tranquilize a small parade.

*Miserable* flight.

Held it together with willpower
            and armrest prayers.

Fort Worth, bed, blackout.

I had one job at 7:30—
           Ava’s show.

“Thirty plays in sixty minutes”,
            Fast-Max maxxed out…
            me choreographing coughs
            into the loud transitions
            like a pit drummer

            who’d learned the script on instinct.

Mission accomplished. (barely)

Back to bed. Farther this time.

Sunday blurred in guaifenesin and DXM,
       various other chemicals and acronyms,
       a pharmacy waltz designed to make breathing…

       remember its manners.

Monday dawned with a blade for a throat,
               my voice memo all gravel,
                  then softened by noon—
                         nostrils clear,
                    lungs less dramatic.

Your thread lit the room—

“Need you here.”

“Yes.”

Booked the flight.

Two nights at Sylvan,
    the kind of yes that signs its name neatly.

Tonight we watch Game Three
        together-apart,
        blue stitched to blue across a wire.

I’ll send you the sound I make when Ohtani squares one,
     you’ll send me that smile
     the camera still can’t quite catch.

Tomorrow: together-together.

I’ll bring a hand to hold
     the voice you remember,
     a shoulder you can lean on…

     until the room remembers us.

Go Dodgers—
   but mostly: go us.

(breathe)