A Plate of Pandemic

Published Quarterly on the Solstices and Equinoxes

Header plates

Creativity in Times of Crisis

Does This Elevator Have COVID?

Elevator Etiquette requires you to ask permission

before entering an already occupied elevator,

no matter how many minutes past 8:00 a.m.

you are, or whether you wear a mask for the 90

seconds you occupy a public space. Unaware

of Elevator Etiquette’s recent evolution,

since I’ve been working from home for 6 months,

I wedge my body through the sliver of a near-sealed

elevator door. A masked man postures himself unwilling

to lend one of his silver-lined wrists to stop the elevator

doors from shutting me and my unkempt, highlighted hair out.

 

I make it into the elevator on my own

and I feel fucking accomplished.

 

Shit—I forgot my mask.

 

This guy is scrunched up in the opposite corner like a slinky—

is he terrified of me? Or how penciled-in my eyebrows look

in the elevator-doors’ reflection? Maybe if I bathe elbow-deep

in Pocketbac Peony sanitizer he’ll see how super responsible

I really am—plus, I’ll smell fucking pristine.

 

Was I not supposed to get on Elevator F?

Why are we stopping on every floor?

Did I miss the “Maximum Capacity” sign?

Is there lipstick on my teeth?

I open my mouth to check for red stains

on my crest-white stripped teeth, and the shriveled

man jumps like I opened my mouth to eat him whole.

 

If I stare down as hard as possible until I reach the 16th floor,

maybe he won’t call out my naked mouth—

and since COVID has strict rules about eye contact,

it won’t be weird that I’m staring so hard at this floor

of cardboard. Wait… where the fuck did the marble tile go?

 

 

Rye Morey
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