EYES ABOVE THE MASK

by Joan Colby

Postal workers at the Bemus Point NY Post Office behind a new partition, designed to keep customers and staff safe during the coronavirus pandemic. Photo by Jim Wehrfritz for the Post Journal (Jamestown NY).

We eye each other warily
Above our masks
Keeping our social distance.

Is this the one, this guy in the tan jacket,
This woman holding a package in gloved hands,
This older man limping with a cane,
This teenager whose mask keeps slipping?

This one? The super spreader of a virus
Unknown to its carrier, asymptomatic.
The one whose contaminated breath
Floats a particle toward us.
Who can we trust? The employee
At the post office desk behind a plastic shield,
The stockers in the grocery aisle unloading cases
Of gingerale or flavored tea.

We hurry in and out of wherever
People gather, even though they obey
The taped lines—six feet? It’s said the virus
Can ride the airways for hours or days
Or months or years, who knows?

Everything we’re told is uncertain,
Hopeful, bold or despairing.
We hasten away from those
Who might somehow touch us.


Joan Colby’s Selected  Poems received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize, and Ribcage was awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize. Her recent books include Carnival from FutureCycle Press, The Seven Heavenly Virtues from Kelsay Books and Her Heartsongs from Presa Press. Her latest book is Joyriding to Nightfall from FutureCycle Press.

PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING

by Diane Elayne Dees

“Asymmetric people are spreading this virus." 

—Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) on Fox & Friends.

I am afraid to go the grocery store,

not because I am an older citizen,

but because one of my feet is longer

than the other, and I will spread

the virus with involuntary asymmetry. 

Roughly two-thirds of us have one

foot longer than the other; many

have a longer leg. My shoulder 

blades are not the same, 

nor are my eyebrows or my ear 

canals. I am a walking repository

of novel coronavirus, dangerous

at any speed. I look closely 

at photos of Senator McSally, 

trying to determine whether 

she is symmetric. I know she talks

out of both sides of her mouth,

but does she do so symmetrically?

I cannot help being asymmetrical;

I was born this way. How long  

have I been spreading deadly

diseases, I wonder, and why 

has no one stopped me before

now? This is a deadly health crisis:

Measure your body parts now,

before you cause damage

with your crooked ways.

Diane Elayne Dees has two chapbooks forthcoming. Her microchap "Beach Days" is available for download and folding from Origami Poems Project. Diane also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world.