freeways: pandemic poem #10
for amy i made it through oakland in minutes racing the freeway arcing the lake looping back past the bay pulling the reins in hard to halt at my corner. traffic is a thing of the past back when i wore slacks and went to lunch and had more to do than just pick up my medicine and hurry home. i don’t see anyone on my street either: usually the high school kids would be tossing wrappers in my bushes jaywalking extravagantly away from my disapproval. it’s quiet here in the after. but then unexpectedly you call, and even more unexpectedly i call back. there might be space here in this great sudden emptiness for conversations about losing and what comes after: wouldn’t we all like to know what comes after? i think it might be the truest thing i ever said: which was i love you. that’s what’s left here at the end of all the empty roads, the coiling freeways that sped us back home.
1 Comment
four more weeks sheltering: pandemic poem #7
the strings of emails the tasks accomplished the drafts the submissions the hours billed: none of it adds up to one room full of laughter, one walk grazing shoulders, one knee to knee strategy session. can i talk to you through the fence i asked thinking it might keep me from breaking. i now have weeks of lists and jokes, terrors and dreams and things i had wanted to ask backed up behind a polite fine: this dam threatening cracks. i can’t wait til it breaks: beware the obsessive love notes and messages marked question a giant earnest wave wrestling the mud and rocks all the way to the ocean. |
Authordani gabriel Archives
August 2020
Categories |