Pandemic

March came around this year, 

extra dirt on her boot, 

hung a wet coat up to dry

full of forebodings, she sighed.

“Must be tough for you, living through these times; 

cancelled flights for Easter 

and you just can’t get good wine.”

On her heel came April

promising no relief,

instead she threw a measure 

and fractured all my beliefs.

“Six-feet is no longer 

the difference between a life lived 

and a life being lived.

Nor is it the distance between 

what is under and what is above,”

said April, unforgiving—

“It isn’t even the historical fragment

of a plague, preventing the dead

from touching the living!”

“Now six feet must be the space 

between you and another,

stranger, mother, brother;

full of new norms and unsuspecting transgressions”

But before April could finish,

 May came to diminish.

“Transgressions in shared spaces like

long supermarket queues; 

accidental coughs, bare mouths, 

too much toilet paper—

forget that you may have an allergy

or the shit of four kids and a dog

to clean-up at home.”

“Home!” laughed June, unannounced,

crowding out,

a space that’s suddenly too small.

And then all the months that left before

came crowding at the door, 

to remind me

that I hated those moments 

when I could smell the morning breath of a stranger in rush hour,

the long commute to that job I couldn’t stand,

but that helped me

keep routine

in the midst of a pandemic.