A year into the pandemic, do I still remember how to kiss, or even to hug? Is it a muscle-memory thing, like riding a bicycle? I’ve forgotten whole languages, one lonely drink at a time. I barely remember what it’s like to be in a room full of strangers. Will we ever pretend that’s normal again?
last year’s pod
still holding on
to next year’s milkweed
I walk to the end of the mountain above the gap. To the east, the giant gray steps of the limestone quarry. To the north, the paper plant with its white flag of vapor. The railroad following the river and the interstate following the ridge. Snow has taken its blank eraser and retreated to higher ground, but the bare earth offers nothing new in its place. Not yet.
noon whistle
I pause to eat a handful
of old snow
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Self-Quarantine
- Pandemic Time
- Quarantine Walk
- Putting a Garden In
- Face Masks
- Flag of Hate
- Spring Evening
- Brachiate
- How to Care
- Public Relations
- Out of Whack
- Tadpool
- In the Fullness of Time
- Unrest
- Robber Fly
- Truncated
- Independence Day
- Drought
- Augury
- Descent
- Crickets
- Execution
- Arboreal
- Nuthatch
- In Common
- Undivided
- Antennae
- Presence
- Losing Maizy
- Heard on High
- Epiphan’t
- Smell Pox
- Winter Den
- 55
- Unforgetting
- Animist
- Exclusive
- Ephemeroptera
- Song Dogs
- Sproing