Closure-19: A Collection of Poems about the Pandemic

This collection of poems was written as a final project for my Rage, Romance, and Resilience During the AIDS Crisis class. They are inspired by both my own experiences and personal interviews from classmates.

Closure-19

i tap through time

feet brushing the water

creating ripples in the blue-like waves,

Soles barely touching 

Lifted with fog

surround me and fill

full chest fill up

pour through my temples

press against gray matter

slowly slowly

slowly 

slower still

breathe and keep breathing in the green haze

teal-blue malaise of days to come

the pond the lily pad

Still drifting across

branches hanging with moss

settling reaching to the ground

in dark emerald sheets 

eyes filled with calm-y thoughts

sit still sit still sit still and wait

green-blue-purple-gray—

thick molasses fog—run faster faster faster still

for

nothing stays here for long

Midyesterday Walk

A walk, you say. Only a walk. Necessary. Exercise get outside

only a walk. We gather masks, water bottles, inhalers, 

barely worn sneakers, stay away stay away stay away.

Thirty minutes of side walk cracks and downturned backs.

A little later, you say. Your brother had an accident. She’ll pick

you up later. We gather shirts, avoid, stuffed animal, alone, 

leave me in the dark don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

Twenty minutes general hospital stop in the car.

Another six feet, you say. Just cross the street. We have to 

be more careful. Move get out of the way faster. Expressionless 

others mark territorial longing farther further farther.

Thirty years of sidewalk cracks and downturned backs.

Ocean of sighs universe of lies memories and swirling

stomachs of now to then and back again. Your voice masked

in the midday-dusk prickling ear canals. Ghost of still-here.

Back downturned to cracks in concrete thirty minutes to go.

April Fools

April first two thousand twenty

clock hands barely moving; grasping at falling feathers

a hair per day one more burned wick 

one more pen running out ink.

Carpet squares—one to the next—have become

well acquainted with the wordless

unwashed cheek of my whitening

face. Vitamin D usually helps but

going outside seems useless.

Desk slats of video classes

glasses piling up on the used-to-

be creative table on the are-my-eyes-getting-better-or-worse

bridge of my nose and I know nothing about this is coated

in the same varnish of yester-

year, yester-

day. It does not matter—that sickly sweet 

nothing—until I think about it.

If I don’t think about it then maybe all of the walls will

Disappear — reappear closer this time 

tick tick. tick. t i c k.     t i      c k—

If I follow the thread around the earth will I fall off

the edge or keep looping around, staring

up at a pupil-black sky spilled with 

stars so close I could run my hand through them.

Funny how the mind plays tricks on the time.

Brain Waves

lukewarm water and colored pencils

Molasses on soggy bread

Nothing but sunlight through windows

Grey dreams

And the numbing fog

Tempered 

By relief and frustration at a laundry list of unfinished business

Balmy knots of boredom

Escapism through an encyclopedia of 

books from yesterday

hidden pathways that

Blur fruit strips 

and dreams

Stories spread in a horizontal spider-web

Agoraphobia and coffee and

bleak blue partly cloudy

Baking depression

Ceiling sewing needle pillows and 

Minecraft bruises from Spring procrastination

And it’s all

Still

Happening

Monotone daze

and poetry haze

Tea and blankets and candle-flame

an eggshell universe cross-stitched

in cat-scratch worry

30 Years From Now

Dear child remember the swell the

rising wave and riptides that tore all of us under.

The last day of school leaving loose ends

and a square of uncertainty altered webbed

timeline frozen around drifting days.

Remember the emperor that lost 

the loincloth and was still followed to the ends of the earth.

Uncharged and uncheck a pulsating tumor

on the face of action and reaction.

The worst can fall but not soon enough.

Remember the brick walls and 

bored warmth so different from the others

murdered over and over and over again.

Buried under porcelain palettes their

voices scream of safer sooner but not enough. 

Remember the thin line and the 

balance it took for productive assurance

the microscopic marks of experiential tendrils

lonely habits and falling on midnight friends

or maybe a singular moment to breath.

Remember when fraying ends were once again tied.

The knots that left marks on faces twisted into new shapes—

fast forward scars and polaroids of one and one and one.

A hazy imprint of change let it live and inhale

and do not forget.

snails

the deepest oceans they call

for this tired body and all of its

aches and cottony limbs

just to sleep in the arms of the 

limited space of this looped mind

the snail crawls up the wall 

one breath at a time a tedious

ascent a monotonous task

the lazy the lazy the lazy

one sleeps on the altar of 

the liminal space between the 

standing up and sitting down

a splotch of unmoldable clay

in an anger-y existful heap 

an emotional-less box encased

in claustrophobia and slurry anxiety

routine lethargy soaked in the

untethered and disorienting repetition

of the sea spray dull dark

and restless incoherent calm