No No, I Don't Want To

She's asleep in her chair now.
Was awake the night before with fever.

She wanted me to leave the door open
at bedtime.

This morning while I was dreaming
about shaving a very thick difficult beard
with a dull rusty razor,
I woke to her voice in the distance.

I found her, in the chair downstairs,
curled, shivering, sobbing "Daddy"
I folded her blankets, special and what not
around her tiny radiant body.

I carefully poured the red liquid (glowing, in the morning light)
As her lips sputtered "Medicine" between gulps.
We slept some more in my bed upstairs.
The fever subsiding, I pulled the quilt around her.

But Now,
After pancakes, after Legos,
she collapses in her chair again.
Occasionally waking to me typing, to a blanket tuck,
she grumbles "No, No, I don't want to."