A catalog of safety tips I heard
last week included rules for running schools,
prescribing masks full-time. But it occurred
to me that face expressions are the tools
we use to see if kids absorb a word
we say, or stare at us like stubborn mules.
If we can’t see the miens, we lose the means
to read the face. We’re better off with screens.
I live near college students. Come each fall
they take up residence and party some.
One year they launched a beer across the wall
between us, but they aren’t pests to me.
Of course I miss their liveliness – the pall
pandemic blocks their fetes and futures too –
as they matriculate, the omens maul –
but Saturday I heard guitar and drum,
and caught cork evidence of alcohol.
Remember how we tried to reuse bags?
The steps we took avoiding solo drives?
Conserving resources for equity,
disdaining plastic and employing rags
where paper went before, protecting lives
of dolphins, reefs of coral majesty?
Or are we on the pathway to forget?
The name of every shop now gone survives
in public records, but the memory
is vague as infant faces age won’t let
me see.
Progressing to Stage 2, we’d like to know
it’s progress, but our only certainty
is lack of information. There’s a show
on every network, short on strategy
and tactics, acting like we’re in a war,
and featuring some hospital release
with “I beat COVID” signs, when truth is more
the whispered “I survived.” I wish they’d cease
reporting lies from president and pals.
I hunger for good science and some fact.
I’m sick of the unreasoned rationales,
and yearn for tests so vectors can be tracked.
My hair’s too long, my mouth is sore: at heart
I know the risk, but want Stage 3 to start.
I started writing poetry at 6,
and cranked it up when I was 41.
Initially it must have been a fix
for some need then unmet, for once begun
I kept composing – efforts ever fun
but never frequent, needing to be spurred,
until I set assignments and when done,
I learned reverse – it’s work that summons word.
Now recently a symptom has occurred,
for after 60 days of writing verse
I feel I’m dull and dallying, absurd
(but not affected yet, or tending worse).
It may be best to take a little time
without my pen, before I’m sick of rhyme.
I telework on Tuesdays, and of late
I spend the next two days in quaranteam.
Then Friday is recovery – a date
for me alone at home where every dream
of comfort rests – I’m resident supreme.
On Saturday the store’s a little dense –
we all have time but most my neighbors seem
to want a weekend shop. The owner gents
take Sunday off. My Mondays are intense.
I own a blue bandana and received
a hand-constructed mask my daughter made.
I dislike wearing each. I feel relieved
to get back home where solitaire is played
and I can touch my face. Of course I’m peeved –
beneath the blue I fear our future’s grayed.
I can’t foresee and don’t know who to ask.
I think I’d better buy another mask.
I’m skeptical about a quick vaccine.
I think we’ll be contending with some flares
at least, and winter surges or unclean
events corruption-born with error snares.
I don’t know details of the coming scene,
but I see spans when everybody wears
a mask or covering, for sanity.
Today I bought online a set of three.
I never was attracted to the stuff
a girl’s supposed to like. I never sought
a make-up tip or owned a powder puff,
I hate to shop, and what my mother taught
was mostly useless and irrelevant.
I tried to run my own experiment
in human over gender, clear within,
and yet I lavish care upon my skin.
I found a facialist and spent the cash,
indulging in a treatment frequently,
suspended now while we’re in house arrest.
I bought from her (online) a precious mask –
the kind that doesn’t block or filter me –
and dedicate today to face unstressed.
Attempting to count blessings while confined
by virus, panic, proclamation, news,
we’re trying to see tempest silver-lined:
We say “At least we,” and embrace the views
of thanks for Internet and nursing crews.
We even hope that when this bane’s controlled,
we’ll know enough to beat the common cold.
But what if science gives us the reverse?
Perhaps Corornavirus will resist
vaccine, like HIV. We’ve borne the curse
of head colds for as long as we exist,
and all our cash and researching have missed
the mark to date. We wish we could be sure,
but we may have to live without a cure.
Pandemic is our civic destiny.
It’s what we breed in cities as we cram
for infrastructure. All our density
is hazardous, but how can we unjam?
It may be that the sickest bought the scam
of empty foods we’ve foisted. Let’s begin
to treat the perils of high insulin.
My biggest earrings fitly interfere
with masks that I’m required now to wear,
but I selected hoops when I showed ear
(I only need the look for barbered hair).
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