{"id":564,"date":"2026-02-27T21:23:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T21:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=564"},"modified":"2026-03-14T15:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T15:58:08","slug":"sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=564","title":{"rendered":"Sick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
As a parent times arise 
when you just don't 
quite know if your kid 
is truly sick
or if they just don't
want to leave
the warmth of their PJs.

But when I entered 
the dim living room
at 6:51 a.m. to find her,
my child, prostrate:
drooped over the sofa
dead in the eyes 
slack at the mouth
immobile and listless
as if Dali painted
hot human pancakes
draped on red couch
and not metal and glass
clocks melting into
a rusty-earthed desert.

In this case, I knew
I already knew, I did.
It was so obvious that
she was out for the count
but still I had to try:
\"Okay it's school time!\"
\"Time to get ready!\"
\"Forty minutes left!\" 
My cheerful voice
fooled no one.

My partner intervened
calling time of death
on her school day:
\"She's not going 
a-n-y-w-h-e-r-e
I mean look at her
come on.\"

And so I sighed 
while manifesting
a patient smile
for my now
unfledged charge
and I said 
to the heap of skin
that purported to be
my daughter:
\"Okay Sweetie, 
let's get you 
back into bed.\"

It was when her face
didn't click into
a sly grin of victory
\u2014 Bueller? Bueller? \u2014
that, there it was,
reality struck loudly:
tick-tock 
this kid is 
s-i-c-k 
sick.
<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cSick,\u201d a determination of wellness or lack thereof, as contrasted with surrealist paintings from Salvador Dali. Written February 27, poem 058 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, “Sick Day Matzo Ball Soup for One” by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,200,2],"tags":[79,57,9,225,224,10,11,226,43],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-humor","category-poems","tag-children","tag-february","tag-humor","tag-illness","tag-motherhood","tag-parenting","tag-relationships","tag-school-days","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":708,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions\/708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}