All tagged 2020/04
Women of a certain age
(Or born at a certain time
In a certain era, milieu, set of expectations...)
Can find their way around other women’s kitchens.
The photos appear, rectangles growing smaller
As more and more of us sign in.
We are in the kitchen, the den, the office—
“At home,” no calling cards needed.
I walk endless circles through the neighborhoods,
Trying to find new streets, new paths,
because at least when I’m moving I’m going somewhere
Even if I always end up back home.
Maniacal movement, watch my step
Trip over the line
Can’t be helped
Inconsequential minutiae stay on my mind
I reckon that we’ve just ran out of time
To address the slow motion
Tick tock, cinematic grains or the vine?
My dad was diagnosed with COVID. My brother has a fever today. My mom is considered essential. I can’t do math. Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day. Today, I exist in limbo. Maybe I’ve been here for awhile. How long? Time has fallen away.
Sometimes I crumple up like bedsheets
only smelling lavender and three-day-worn sweaters
A few months ago, I knocked the clock off my nightstand
I haven’t picked it up. I’m waiting
for the right time, I think
The Lyft driver called his wife twice. The first time,
she said their nephew had gone. Taken all his stuff
and gone. The driver coughed; when we asked,
he said smoker’s cough.
I spoke with Mother Nature yesterday
I asked her about those bleached reefs
I asked her about our felled forests
I asked her about her hurricane program
New Year’s Eve rain turned ice in the dark.
Morning comes; rising low, sun appears.
Smooth curves, elegant grain
where bark has peeled away,
to be sawn into perfect lengths.
I know what I intend for all of you.
In the midst of this Corona crisis
I sip a cup of tea.
Free as I can be
I sip a cup of tea.
Trapped I am in
this six by seven cell,
a living hell for some.
My summer pieces are stored away
So I’m down to this turtleneck with rolled-up sleeves
Pale sunlight lounging along houses all day
Gives me hope of stretching it in both directions
Like saltwater taffy
Banditry – face-mask bandanas at the Co-op
Money laundering – washing dresser-top coins, with lots of suds
Shooting up in the parking lot – drive to the doctor’s office, phone, and wait.
The nurse injects you in your car.
On the eleventh, I was sent home from work.
Now it’s been ten days of distance,
Zoom conferences, no rubbing shoulders
with colleagues and friends.
This is an internal dialogue. It goes like this: Why do you want to stay safe? What a stupid and insulting question!
Google Maps won’t tell you to make that first right at the Presbyterian church
Then go two stops past the nail salon, not that nail salon
Oh, it’s a vaping place now. Quick turn here. Pardon
We try to wield our way home. Wend and yield a lane less alone. At the end of one telling I came across another’s labyrinth, detached like a discarded chrysalis — and was finally able to wander.
