A Plate of Pandemic
Published Semi-annually on the Solstices
Creativity in Times of Crisis
this is a day without much meaning. i am feeling peace for the first time in a lifetime and march is on the horizon and nothing could possibly hurt me now – not when i have already been
We sit with solemn faces in front of the peaked, three-tiered cupboard that houses framed pictures and brass statuettes of goddesses and gods, and we start praying at the stroke of the hour, not wavering until sixty minutes are over.
It was always so little to ask ourselves to wait in separate places for the world to end, to wear one small accessory to save someone else, meanwhile everyone eagerly chose a side, some to wait in separate places
–after Weldon Kees Crumpled between dumpster and fire door, whites of her eyes stippled red, scream stiff in a tin-gray face. No surprises anymore I overhear the forensic guy sigh. All the usual, plus we got the
inspired by Erica Hunt I was oblivious, optimistic even, when the pandemic arrived and my youth grabbed the first train out, one way ticketed. I took the pause gladly, a minute to listen to the clock’s tocks, close my
As I bemoan covidity, I secretly recognize karma for my younger self’s joy when the thermometer shot up—“that’s why they call it quicksilver,” my mother said— beyond 100 and school was “out of the question” leaving me instead to answer
There is a stoplight now in my hometown at the intersection of Highway 69 and 210. I slow my car down, impatient for the light to turn. I look over at the cemetery where my mother-in-law is buried. I
Attention, if given, is perfunctory. This physician’s assistant, that nurse practitioner, not ever the doctor, pretend to listen, what can they know about something no one knows, without glancing at your grey face, they type endlessly into crispy flaked laptop