I’ve been writing,
reflecting in my journal
and thinking just what you asked:
Why does this
feel different from the
already self
isolated state we live in?
The closest I’ve come to it is a
feeling that’s like those
wire-framed screen covers
people put on food in the summer to
keep the flies off.
Little Covie (may I call you that?)
doing what you’ve done since
the beginning — begetting and begetting
in biblical proportion, as though
there were no tomorrow, surviving
as we wear you to the mall.
I call Aminah, a refugee, to ask has she all
urgent instructions in Arabic? “This virus
is everywhere, in every language!”
She is aghast that I don’t see
and rushes off to What’s App
Mom and Dad in Baghdad.
and in these times,
I focus on the birds, the chirps, the helicopter thrum of wings
the gossip high in the bare branches
trees waiting for pips to become a blush of early green
at dawn they branch like the lobes of lungs
and crocus tips sharp-tongued make faces through the leaden leaves
and in these times,
each day is brighter, the tint in the sky is turning a more assured blue
and the moon still sasses me early in the morning
“what a beauty I am!” and then fades into breakfast
Continue Reading in these times
T’was the beginning of 2020, we thought we were all free
Christmas just ended, but there’s still time for a spree
It’s the new year, a new decade, forget the black past
but who knew COVID-19 would hit just as fast
It made its first appearance in Wuhan, China
then stealthily gained way to Europe and America
“Oh, it’s nothing, it’s just a common cold,
it targets not the young but the elderly old”
Continue Reading In Alight of Covid-19
Scalp, corset-tight;
muscles screech
against my bones
Flock of geese
in my chest
Map of the world with its new
and jarring colors —
I avoid the mental math.
Continue Reading Infection
