LIKE MERCURY

by Rachel R. Baum

A memorial for Shayma Roman, 17, who was killed in front of her grandmother’s house in Brooklyn. Credit: Laylah Amatullah Barrayn for The New York Times, December 27, 2022

Guns are now the No. 1 cause of deaths among American children and teens, ahead of car crashes, other injuries and congenital disease. —The New York Times, December 15, 2022

measure guns, like AR-15s, in linear feet,

or add up the dead, war’s body count

 

more guns for everyone, more bullets,

more spent shells, more active shooter drills

 

more school playgrounds empty of play

blinds closed, lights off, how many will fit

 

in a supply closet, behind its door, they turn 

and bump, constellations in a night sky

 

stars hiding in quiet deep black holes

listening for hallway footsteps in space

 

no light will pierce their sealed vacuum, 

like Mercury, another moonless messenger

 

without wings on their backpacks

they orbit in locked classrooms

 

holding their teacher’s hand, no talking,

only texting their mothers goodbye.

 

Rachel R. Baum is the editor of Funeral and Memorial Service Readings Poems and Tributes (McFarland, 1999) and the author of the long-running blog Bark: Confessions of a Dog Trainer. Her poems have appeared in Poetica Review, Raven’s Perch, OneArt, Crosswinds, and others. She chairs the committee that will select the first Poet Laureate of Saratoga Springs.

DELIVERED

by Julian Matthews

“Dinner With Friends” Painting by Victoria Coleman

A poem on our first meeting after being in a writing workshop on Zoom for six weeks, and in various lockdowns for a year and ten months.

And so we sit at the table partaking of a meal,

the home-made, home-cooked, home-delivered

a gathering of friends, new and old,

unmuted, unzoomed, live, in-person, fully embodied,

greeting each other like refugees

meeting on the dock, our boats having survived

the treacherous crossing of middle class suburbia

and stepping back onto the shores of human connection again, 

wetting our cold feet and lapping up warm chatter about pets, 

pasta, pastries, prices, politics and the pandemic, always the 

     pandemic,

and, thankfully, of our common love of books, and writing and 

     poetry

and missing sitting in darkened theatres with strangers, to watch 

     a movie,

or a play or just chilling with a warm-up, pre-concert cocktail, 

     perhaps a long island tea, 

or two, before listening to an orchestra, fingers fondling keys, 

     bows caressing strings,

lips pressed against mouthpieces, hugging tubas, the tsk-chizz 

     of sticks on cymbals, 

being enveloped by the sensurround sounds of music played by 

     real, in-the-flesh humans...

And in the end there is laughter, ribbing and the teasing out

of each other's backgrounds, our reasons for being, why the 

     need to put words

on rectangular screens, this unboxing of the isolation inside us, 

     this shedding of thickened skins,

double-vaxxed, immunized, and unmasked, fully ensconced in 

     that most singular of human acts,

the Art of Conversation, manifesting our ancestral DNA of 

     gathering around the embers of dying

fires under stars, trading stories, sharing opinions and yes, even 

     gossiping,

just to know we are alive, 

we are still alive.

Julian Matthews is a former journalist finding new ways to express himself in the pandemic through poetry, short stories and essays. He is published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Nine Cloud Journal, Poor Yorick Journal, Borderless Journal, Second Chance Lit, Poetry and Covid, the anthology Unmasked: Reflections on Virus-time (curated by Shamini Flint), cc&d magazine, a Scars Publication, and forthcoming in the American Journal of Poetry. He is based in Malaysia.

BARE FLOOR, WITH COAT HANGER

by Francesco Levato

Author’s Note: This piece dealing with Texas Senate Bill 8 is from a series I’m working on titled SCARLET, a digital visual/poetic meditation on the fractured state of psyche induced by extended social isolation under COVID-19 lockdown. The digital/visual poems are created through erasure of Jack London’s post-apocalyptic novel The Scarlet Plague collaged with glitched imagery from everyday life to reflect the state of a pandemic self in forced confinement.

Francesco Levato is a poet, a literary translator, and a new media artist. Recent books include Arsenal/Sin Documentos; Endless, Beautiful, Exact; Elegy for Dead Languages; War Rug; Creaturing (as translator); and the chapbooks A Continuum of Force and jettison/collapse. He has collaborated and performed with various composers, including Philip Glass, and his cinépoetry has been exhibited in galleries and featured at film festivals in Berlin, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Poetry, a PhD in English Studies, and is currently an Associate Professor of Literature & Writing Studies at California State University San Marcos.

SWIMMING ON THE MOON

by Amy Barone

ESA via MIT Technology Review

A yellow ribbon of angst floats above.

During the lockdown, some spent days

baking bread, while a friend nearly starved

to death—driven to the ER by fear and seclusion.

 

A magnet for benign and wicked misfits,

I pull a mask over distress, pluck thorns

from my sides, and spend fitful nights

asleep with people still in my system.

 

Now that water’s been spotted there,

I think I’ll head to the moon for a swim,

embrace lunar life off the grid, get revived

on a smooth intergalactic ride, as I wave goodbye

to bugling elk, dazzles of zebras, and dozing cuttlefish.  

Amy Barone’s poetry collection, We Became Summer, from New York Quarterly Books, was released in early 2018. She wrote chapbooks Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway (Foothills Publishing.) Barone’s poetry appears in Local Knowledge, Paterson Literary Review, Sensitive Skin, and Standpoint (UK). She lives in NYC.

EMPTIED

 by Andrena Zawinski

The streets and playgrounds, the courts and fields are emptied. 

The string of row house swings emptied of coffee klatches 

across porch rails. Silence on cobbles glistening in morning dew, 

heady scent of honeysuckle wafting by windows we close. 

Framed by the limits of imagination, ears cocked to a sparrow’s song,

sun setting on pyramids, creek beds, ice floes, desert flowers 

past our views of the world, ghosts carousing night winds 

of our mourning, all the eyes on clear skies boasting stars above

moored cargo ships, snow capped peaks, the sweaty rainforests.

Our windows view the emptied harbors, farmlands and vineyards, 

fire escapes and stoops. All of it emptied of the large and small 

solitary pleasures of our fractured lives in this godawful air.

Andrena Zawinski’s poetry has received awards for lyricism, form, spirituality, social concern, many of them Pushcart Prize nominations. Her latest book is Landings (Kelsay Books); others are Something About (Blue Light Press PEN Oakland Award) and Traveling in Reflected Light (Pig Iron Press Kenneth Patchen Prize) along with several chapbooks. She founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and is a previous contributor to The New Verse News.

ISOLATION

by Carl Mayfield





Slicing blossom rot off tomatoes,
we add the remains to the salad.

Loose chickens mill about the gate,
separating the dog from his mind.

Deep breathing keeps me busy.
News of the world replaces the world.

Scaled quail stay close to saltbush,
fearful of what the sky might send.

Carl Mayfield lives in the American Southwest. He doesn't want to jump his place in line so he washes his hands a lot, wears a mask, and stays home. He hopes this helps you keep your place in line right where it is.

LIFE IN THE PANDEMIC

by John Guzlowski

"The Persistence of Memory" (1931) by Salvador Dali

Things are slowing down.

It takes me 2 days to drink a cup of coffee,
A week to read a book,
A month to water the bushes we re-planted in June.

I move from one room to another
looking for shoes I haven’t worn in 2 months.
If I come across my car keys
I won’t recognize them.

I’ve stopped listening to the news
Stopped looking out the window
Stopped wondering what tomorrow
Will be like.

I started this poem in March
Maybe I’ll finish it
By Christmas.

John Guzlowski's poems and stories have appeared in North American Review, Ontario Review, Rattle, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, Crab Orchard Review, and Salon. Garrison Keillor read his poem “What My Father Believed” on his program The Writers Almanac.  Guzlowski's poems have won the Eric Hoffer/Montaigne Award for most thought provoking book of 2017, the Ben Franklin Poetry Award, and the $7500 Illinois Arts Award for Poetry. 

A GRACE NOTE: JULY SUNDAY CARD GAME

by Earl J Wilcox

"The Queen of Spades" by Noumeda Carbone

Today—our last Sunday in July—
we fudge our usual routines.
No news shows, a quick glance
at the Sunday funnies, no church
service videos, not even asking
Alexa for some cool music.
Let’s be brave, forego allusions
to T***P, his desperate campaign,
send emails to friends in Portland,
only brief whispered prayers, no politics
as usual today. We agree to feed
the cats, refill the bird feeder, water
the lamb’s ear. A hot Carolina July
is normal enough. Aging plastic cards
are found, a family day for joy and peace
and hope. We spend the morning playing
our favorite card game, Hearts, in which
avoiding the dreaded Queen of Spades
is as much tension and grief we have
to give each other today


Earl Wilcox's back yard is open to squirrels, robins, and cotton tail rabbits. 

SPACE AVAILABLE

by Sharon Olson

They call it the landscape of fear,
the sense that humans are near,
ears pricked to catch the menace
of car engines, commerce unabated.

So the deer were always nearby,
watching for safe spaces, as if
they might be able to read
the stickers on library doors.

The map has now been redrawn,
if the foxes can come out of hiding,
say the deer, then so can we,
nobody seems to be stopping us.

We are now hosting a family of deer,
our yard a new venue for outdoor dining,
our menu of specials features straight-up
hostas, day lilies, rosehips for dessert.

In dark of night, though, a new creature
has joined the neighborhood menagerie,
squirrels and mice beware, the fisher cat
pierces the silence with its strangling call.

Sharon Olson is a retired librarian who lives in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Her book The Long Night of Flying was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her second book Will There Be Music? was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2019.

POWER OUTAGE

by Laura Rodley

No Covid here, just sleeping dog, sleeping cat,
no Covid here, doorknobs wiped off, laundry dry,
no Covid here, breeze courting sparrows and wrens,

no Covid here, the leaves of the maples turn it away,
no Covid here, the mice at the gates chew it away,
no Covid here, sparrows, rose breasted grosbeaks peck at its crumbs,

no Covid here, tomato plants flowering, lettuce plumping,
no Covid here, sleeping dog, sleeping cat, popsicles,
no Covid here, last night power outage, lightning bugs for lamps,

no Covid here, the chipmunks carry it away in fat cheeks,
no Covid here, porcupines shake their quills at it,
no Covid here, table umbrella up, providing shade,

no Covid here, alcohol preps in front hallway,
no Covid here, doorknobs wiped off, floors vacuumed,
no Covid here, front line Jim took navy shower, conserving water,

no Covid here, clothes off, decontaminated,
no Covid here, hands washed, twenty seconds, length of a long sigh,
no Covid here, watermelons holding onto their flowers,

no Covid here, only the clock ticked, told time, trembled,
no Covid here, candles on the table, matches, no flushing toilets,
no Covid here, lightning bugs gathered on screens, blinking,

no Covid here, neighbors wear no masks walking,
no Covid here, they say they had it, but could not get tested,
no Covid here, they say they can’t get the antibody test either,

no Covid here, antibody test hard to get, they work at home,
no Covid here, no internet, no wireless lightning bugs beating,
no Covid here, the fox carries away all corpses.

No Covid here, garter snakes keep guard in the garden,
no Covid here, maple tree leaves wave it along its way,
no Covid here, the grounds area guarded by field mice,

no Covid here, grass covered with spent dandelions, comfrey,
no Covid here, pathway into forest deep and long, but it ends.
No Covid here, sonic boom of jets propel it away,

no Covid here, rock and roll radio, oldies station,
no Covid here, new grass won’t allow it, nor the chipmunks.


Laura Rodley is a Pushcart Prize Winner. Her most recent books are Turn Left at Normal (Big Table Publishing) and Counter Point (Prolific Press).

LAST SUMMER

by Jeremy Thelbert Bryant

A sign in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Thursday, June 18, 2020, asks people to maintain social distancing on the beach. People are flocking to South Carolina’s beaches for vacation after being cooped up by COVID-19 for months. But the virus is taking no vacation as the state has rocketed into the top five in the country. —WBTW, July 6, 2020

Asked whether leaders along the Grand Strand have discussed limiting visitors due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune told CNN on Monday “not yet, not at this time.”


Not at this time, the mayor says
as though a pandemic is not in the mix
of suntan lotion, bikinis, and waterboards,
as though 1,324 South Carolina bodies aren’t in the hospital,
as though sunshine and sea salt are tonics
against ventilators and final wishes.
How quickly beach towels become hospital
blankets. How quickly sun-christened boomboxes
are replaced with machines that beep out of rhythm.
Visitors will not be reduced at this time,
but will they be reduced in two weeks, reduced
and struggling to survive that one last beach trip?

Jeremy Thelbert Bryant is a poet and a writer of creative nonfiction. He is a graduate of the low residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College. His work may be found in TheNewVerse.News, Pikeville Review, EAOGH, Anima Magazine, and Prism. He finds inspiration in the red of cardinals, in the honesty of Frida Kahlo’s artwork, and in the frankness of Tori Amos’ lyrics.

SHELTER II

by Corey Weinstein

    at the foot of Sinai

Meandering through our sheltered lives of isolation
A fortnight and forty nine mark the days of our trek
Weeks weeping with news, sidewalks burdened by tents
Safer than starving migrant workers tramping home
More generous than gang youth herded into gladiator pits
Than daughters crying goodbye through computer screens
This trudge of my safety through a retreat of comfort
I look to those who have endured decades locked
down in eight by ten concrete and steel tombs
They at my right arm of justice, left of compassion
My teachers of confinement, five decades at their knee
Bang on my pipe, whisper somethings into my vent
Fly me a kite on a string through others’ hands
Design my program from wake up to bed down
Rise for tea and slow stretch and slower meditation
Gratitude, healing, love, praise, respect for the elders
Eat, walk, write, trash, eat, read, tidy, rehearse, eat,
dishes, news, read, TV, lockup, gray head weekly shop
Make sure the canteen is paid up and shelves are full
Decaf black, Rooibos, Hawthorne, Lemon Verbena
Sleepy Time, chocolate, hummus, cabernet—the essentials
Make sure the letters are written, calls made, people loved.
Boredom, comfort and routine seem too much the same
As the new moon brings us cowering to the foot of Sinai
We descendants of Noah through Shem enter full footed into
hallways of the breathless dying, and acres of coffin digs
More black men officially murdered, again and again
Exploding into the rage of youth, of those left further behind
How can we find the radiance borne of inner wisdom, of hope
Of gratitude or new knowledge, of being touched by the ineffable
We cover up while societies are unmasked, still and always
Worse for the worst off, and not so good for me either.

Corey Weinstein is a retired physician who works for the human rights of prisoners. He is founder of California Prison Focus that advocates for prisoners in long term solitary confinement. He has published two CDs of music largely inspired by the klezmer and Yiddish stage musical traditions and has written and produced a play in song staged in 2016 in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the massacre at Babi Yar. His poetry has been published in Jewish Currents, Vista and Byways, and Forum (City College of San Francisco).

LAST WORDS

by Joan Mazza

Without TV, I turn to the Internet to see
videos of crowds rushed by the police
with shields and full riot gear as they push
back protestors. Tear gas and smoke,
shouting, chanting one man’s name,
his last words an echo of another’s—

I can’t breathe.

So many people pushed together, crowds
breathing each other’s breaths, droplets
of anger and outrage pooling to form
a stream, a river, an ocean of grief,
hundreds of years of slave masters
and tyrants, bullies and dictators.

I can’t breathe.

Gowned and masked, medical workers
adjust tubing and drips, hear last gasps
of the those dying alone. No visitors
allowed. We’re socially distant, isolated,
afraid of friends and family who have
marched to say no to brutality.

I can’t breathe.

George Floyd, your name enters
the litany with Philando Castile, Sandra
Bland, Michael Brown, Eric Garner.
White, armed protestors who threaten
the Wisconsin governor’s life are met
with hard stares, not tear gas.

I can’t breathe.

I’m coughing. My throat is sore. My eyes
hurt, joints ache. Ticks and pollen
are thick this year. The news is muddy.
Our president is no leader, no comfort.
He threatens more beatings, promises
shooting will reign supreme.

I can’t breathe.


Joan Mazza worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, and taught workshops on dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her work has appeared in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, The MacGuffin, Prairie Schooner, and The Nation.

AMERICAN PLAGUE

by Jan Steckel

“Bug Bell Jar 3” Color Screen Print on 250gsm Stonehenge by Emma Wiesenekker

Ensconced in my 1926 paint-peeling
clapboard-rotting Oaktown bungalow
on the eleventh day of George Floyd
I-Can’t-Breathe marches, three months
into COVID-19 Bay Area lockdown.
Ate the last big-pharm pain pill.
Looters hit our CVS, so I’m texting
photos to GreenRush Cannabis Delivery:
driver’s license, medical marijuana card,
a postmarked envelope to me myself,
so they’ll hand-deliver me CBD balm.
Those dudes are intrepid: not rain
nor snow nor sleet nor tear gas. I could just
handshake-buy shake from the boys
hanging out unmasked in front
of the Korean liquor store all day,
but I’m trying to preserve that fragile
lung tissue, don’t want to aggravate
my alveoli, because I’m high-risk
four different ways. I no longer
venture out of my crib, just click
click click my thumbs while humming
"We Shall Overcome" to the rhythm
of flash bangs and helicopter blades.
Once I marched for Black Lives Matter.
Now I’m a bug in a bell jar launching
bucks through the ether at bail funds.
My hair grows in wavy and gray.
For exercise I prune deadfall,
clear long grass and blackberry vines
from the  backyard fence,
waiting for fire season to spark,
black smoke to roll. Oh Lord when
will we all be able to breathe?


Jan Steckel is a former pediatrician who stopped practicing medicine because of chronic pain. Her latest poetry book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, December 2018) is a finalist for poetry in the Bi Book Awards. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, TheNewVerse.News, November 3 Club, Assaracus and elsewhere.

A BILLION TONS

by Pepper Trail

A highway leading to downtown Los Angeles, California, is empty last month during the coronavirus pandemic. The view of downtown is clearer than usual as the city and the world sharply cut daily carbon dioxide emissions. But a new scientific study says the long-term effects of months-long reduction will be quite small. —AP, May 19, 2020 Photo:Mark J. Terrill/AP

Outside the window, a billion tons of CO2 are not there
I take the billion tons, wrap my arms around them
Muscle them down, get them into a shape I can handle
Fold them, fold them again, and smaller again,
Press them at last into what else but a diamond
Put it in a box for my daughter, for her wedding
If I would have a daughter, if she would have a wedding

Outside the window, 375,000 people are not there
One sang “Angel from Montgomery”—you can hear the echo
One thought the disease was a joke, until it wasn’t
One gave me the key to all the plants, and I have it still
They are beating against my window softly as moths
Against all the windows, and we look through them
When we look out, which is what we are always doing

Outside the window, my father and mother are not there
They left in good time, and were spared this particular nothing
My father is free to walk the Carolina forest, forever looking
Quietly content with bird or frog, bloodroot or lady-slipper
My mother can sing in her choir, too short to be seen
Behind the ranks of Easter lilies and the tall candles
But I know she is there, and I know where he has gone

Outside the window, my life is not there
The flight to Australia, the places never to be seen
The meal in the restaurant where we would have quarreled
Or where I would have said you were right, all along
The baseball games, your art show, the old too and fro
They say if you add it all up, it makes a billion tons
And also that, in the end, it makes no difference at all


Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

MICAH IN THE MIDST OF THE PANDEMIC

by Katherine M. Clarke

Micah

Our puppy arrives, six pounds
of squirming golden fluff chirping and burrowing
under my arm, trembling against my breast.

I reach back to my mother’s knee to find
what I’ve forgotten I know, singing
knick-knack paddy whack give the dog a bone

and nestle him into his crate with Mr. Krinkle
whose face he chews off but who still obligingly rustles,
offering rope hands and feet to gnaw on in the night.

As pandemic chaos reigns outside, love grows inside,
my beloved Lily handling and tending this small body
bursting into life, insisting on what he wants and needs

tired or not, frightened or not, a life counting on her.
She walks softly in stocking feet to feel him underfoot
to know when he races over her toes to hide.

Scooped up Micah rides high along her arm,
a pasha attended by his servant.
Firsts abound—sleeping through the night,

tasting snow, eating grass, throwing up.
Accepting a collar and lead as she hustles
him out the side door to the yard.

Victory, cheering, applause. Relief for both.
No need for social distance as the lord of all wriggliness
plays with Delores, a stuffed sheep, and Road-Kill Buzzy,

the flat woodchuck toy. A spiky rubber teething ring
on the shower curtain spread over the living room rug
as if a sphere of the virus had leapt from the television

screen filled with images of tents and stadiums for hospitals
warehouses loaded with coffins, trucks filled with bodies
while we shelter at home, grateful, joy strewn all around.

Katherine M. Clarke is a professor emeritus of Antioch University New England. Her essays and poetry have appeared in Writing it Real, Breath and Shadow, Wordgathering, Oasis, The Sun Magazine, and Northern New England Review.

UNMASKING PROCEDURES

by Randy Brown

with language borrowed and adapted from the U.S. Army “Soldier’s Manual of Common Tasks” (Skill Level 2)

In this DOD photo from 2012, “Bushmaster” soldiers receive refresher training on the proper wear of the field protective mask and the Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology protective garment, and gain confidence in their equipment by unmasking in a gas chamber at Fort Stewart, GA. Photo by Sgt. Mary Katzenberger

“Some reopening states are already claiming victory over the coronavirus. 

But the real consequences won’t be clear for weeks.” 

—The Atlantic, May 15, 2020

Note: Before conducting unmasking procedures,
make every effort to otherwise confirm
the absence of contamination.

Note: The senior person present selects one or two
soldiers to unmask.

Note: It is best to disarm the people selected
prior to ordering them to unmask.

1.
Conduct unmasking procedures in the shade.

2.
Direct selected individuals to each take a deep breath,
to break the seals of their masks (keeping their eyes open)
for 15 seconds, and to then again seal and clear their masks.

3.
Observe for 10 minutes.

4.
If no symptoms appear, direct the individuals
to unmask for 5 minutes
and to then again don, seal, and clear their masks.

5.
Observe for 10 minutes.

6.
If no symptoms appear, direct everyone to unmask.

7.
“All-clear.” Go back to work. “Re-open the economy.”
Shake hands. Get a haircut. Kiss.

8.
Observe for delayed symptoms.

Note: You might have to wait a couple of weeks
just to be sure.

Randy Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. A 20-year veteran with one overseas deployment, he subsequently authored the 2015 poetry collection Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire. He also co-edited the 2019 anthology Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War. As “Charlie Sherpa,” he blogs about war poetry, civil-military discourse, and military-themed writing.

NEEDS

by William Aarnes

At protests, mostly white crowds show how pandemic has widened racial and political divisions. —Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2020

“The seeming needs of my fool-driven land”

—W. B. Yeats, “All Things Can Tempt Me”

. . . the need to flock
to beaches, to swarm

into parks, the need
to hear a preacher

in person, to crush
together in bars . . .

the need to fear
the foreigner, to toy

with the facts, the need
to exploit the poor,

to be free of caring
about the dying . . .

the need to brandish
a weapon, to rally

in support of a fool . . .


William Aarnes lives in South Carolina.

IN OUR PRIME

by Kate Bradley-Ferrall

My cottony bra arrived yesterday, flattened
in a limp, black bag an essential worker delivered.
I chose the sporty one because it had the most positive reviews
about relaxing and staying-at-home.
Five stars for comfort.
Light. Soft.
Minimal support is fine right now.
Hardly anyone sees me below the neck these days.
This Zoom-worthy bra barely cradles my weighty breasts,
which I refuse to call “the girls.”
Why do people call them that? Mine have been
squashed, tugged, suckled, bitten, stroked, and adored,
the work of many years of strength and wisdom,
not of flippant schoolgirls giggling in sunlight,
their own breasts small puffs beneath fresh, white blouses.
Today my hardened bust heaves
at the thought of you dying alone.
And I feel guilt for lounging
in an optional heather-blue bra,
while a stiff mask cups your nose and mouth,
and an invisible weight crushes your chest
in a stagnant darkness that binds
you to an unfamiliar bed.

Kate Bradley-Ferrall is staying inside with her wife, two daughters, and her quarantining mother. A former award-winning television producer and scriptwriter, her creative work has been published in The Colorado Review, Sick Lit and children's magazines. She currently walks her dogs. A lot.

OVID LOCKDOWN

Eugène Delacroix: “Ovid among the Scythians,” 1862. (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Damian Balassone is an Australian poet whose work has appeared in over 100 publications, most notably in The New York Times.  He is the author of three volumes of poetry, including Strange Game in a Strange Land.