It’s every mother’s job to feed her young,
innate and second only to the birth,
to reproduce her heritage among
the myriad of beings on the earth.
But somehow that imperative to feed
grew viral and took over like a law.
When faced with child illness, mothers plead
for eating, though that treatment has a flaw.

In fact our bodies need to take a rest
all night, and much of daytime when we’re ill,
from processing ingestion. Vigor pressed
to metabolic tasks cannot fulfill
repair and growth and germ-defeating needs.
In illness and at midnight, food impedes.