The Book of Covid

It might be that my exterior melted a bit last year
that it’s shinier now, more like fiberglass, which I hadn’t noticed to be honest
until just last week.

That it’s a little more weather resistant, which is nice.
More sun proofed. Akin to the skin
of a sailboat — a sunfish sailboat like the one
my dad wanted to buy when I was a teen, and he was in his forties,
when we took that class about
tying knots.

I used to pride myself on my permeable skin.
I would chat with you
we would chat about this or that, and through our chat
I would find myself replenished.
My roots. My happy roots.

But now things bead up on me sometimes.

I look down at my legs, at my hands and I see water beads
I shake off those beads and I think

this is a way that I may have changed
a bit last year.

Ocean ready I am.
But covered in beads.

I want to clank my fist
against the armor they’re constructing
inside me.

Rattle the scaffolding
just enough to let them know
I know

there are laborers hammering away at this
shiny new space suit

they’re building inside me

I can feel them hammering with their tiny hammers.
My skin can feel them all

so I can
survive

this new terrain.

For example:

coffee shops, I’m told,
are where humans
like to sit and read.

To write short poems.

He gave me back my hard drives today
by the pond by the geese
by the free-range 3-year-olds who
don’t even know what “pandemic” means.

By their moms who don’t trust the geese, don’t trust
the two old(er) guys at the picnic table
with matching gray streaked
beards handing

a box
between them.
Wordless very much
like the cold warriors
they are.

They are cold. We are cold.
It’s a cold day.

I want to shake the box and the hard drives
and let all the
photos and movies of my kids
as kids rain down, coat my hair
like pixel dust with their music videos and
the sound files we kept of their
toddler voices with
New York accents

my beloved
lost characters from
“Our Gang.”

We put our masks back on when people move close.
Slip them over, up over our mouths.

We talk about how we’re still
making time for creative projects.

He can’t help me with my drives.
He has to work on his script.
I can’t read his script. I need to work on my poems.
We both need to work.

We sound like two people talking about how
the stores are closing soon,

and if we want to buy that shirt
those slacks, that stylish hat
we’ll need to get it in gear and
head to the mall.

We’re out in the morning
driving down 8th street after the rain
looking for coffee in a favorite neighborhood

trying to figure out if this store or that cafe
made it through the night.

I’m expecting to see palm fronds in the street
sandy-colored mutts running at an angle
cars and cans tipped over
telling the rest of us to be quiet be quiet
while they try to
sleep it off.

A hurricane
came through town these last 13 months
there was a
hurricane in town, touching down,

and we’re out and about in the morning now
driving through the next-day sun.

The street’s wet from 13 months of
when’s it gonna end
and we’re looking around for coffee and
an old rhythm.

Looking down streets
and in windows
to see who’s still here.

Threaten me with your breeze,
Your touch this
Fragile skin I’ve got has cracks.

If you come to my door, I’ll open it slow,
Step back, pull up like for a fadeaway,

I’ll raise my voice,
Keep you at bay.

Don’t breathe into me, my friend my foe
don’t send me words.

I won’t
breathe
into you.

It’s changing things.
I’m evolving into future
me, some better biped. A cellular
remodel til I can

eat at a restaurant outside or
be in a friend’s backyard
outside and if they walk past me,
too close, it’s ok,
not too close
after all.
And I can
use their restroom.

And after that, after this:
flight. super strength.
heat vision.

I’ll be some
better biped
changed by a vaccine and
40 years in the desert
and all the things
it did
to all us.

When I come back to the office
we will all look older.

And that’s because we will all be older.

No one will return as they were. As they left. Even
if they sit in similar seats, and the fashions
haven’t changed all that much.

Meeting rooms will be booked. Restrooms taken.
Notebooks will be misplaced and there will
be coffee, I’m sure and
everyone will have
an avalanche that happened
while they were away
some ice that broke off
that fell off of them

into the canyon below.

And then suddenly, yesterday, it was Spring.

With dreams of visits to foreign lands —

to movie theaters, coffee shops,
to the insides of other people’s houses
where dining room tables turned into desks
might become dining room tables
with a few things on them
once again.

All in the seasons ahead.
Far away, down this curvy road.

But trees and fields fly by in the Spring.

An underrated skill. The ability to
enjoy the sky,
a perfect book

a wonderful chat

a cup of tea,
if that’s your thing.

Not a case of denial.

Just watching the news, making plans
and then taking out your boxes.
These ancient things.

“Look at him. Look at her,” they might say:

“Check out that outstanding
compartmentalizer.”

Wondering about
all the quarantine screenplays
that are being written right now
in smallish spring apartments with
open windows where
people perhaps don’t bother
zipping up their flies as
much as they
normally would.

The romcoms sure about falling in
love on Zoom, but also
the quarantine buddy comedies the
online detective stories the
psychedelic misadventures the meditative spiritual
wonderama’s the Judd Apatow-produced
off-color with a heart of gold
guy and gal night outs without
actually going out the
all in one day coming of age
teen true stories the castaway
remakes with a basketball because that’s what was on hand
and the turners.

and the hooches.