I Go Nowhere

I Go Nowhere

By Stephanie Peirce

I go nowhere.
I enter no buildings.
After hours I enter a post office lobby wearing a mask.

A mask is no longer a metaphor,

It’s a soft thing which clings to your face like a bat.

You hear your own breathing.
Your breath builds up.

There is one woman there,
Wearing a mask,
And she stands back as far across the room as she can,
So politely,
To allow me to enter.

Then she exits the door
And I am once again all alone,

Two masked ships passing in the night.

Even if you saw someone you knew,
You’d probably not know them.

Most eye contact has ceased,
And hardly anyone seems to have combed their hair.

I touch as few surfaces as possible.

When I exit, I hold up only the two fingers I’ll be sanitizing.

“Peace,”
My hand seems to say to the world.

April 13, 2020

Indolence, an Ode

Joe Todaro

This means moments hours-long 

when one can rest upon chair of choice 

and consider the wind outdoors;

nothing like a house that’s silent 

but for its own breath, 

in late winter forced-air shimmer, 

tinnitus like cicadas under fridge murmur; 

There will be a slow hum of cars, 

of doors and stair-steps; 

a vast negotiation beyond that door. 

Here is a steaming cup of coffee, 

water bottle over the evening’s pills, 

some sheet music, a pen; 

I remember a fervor in acquiring these things 

but now they are here. 

They show us images of unrealness 

many forms; follow us 

into our tender sinews of understanding; 

foretell, depict, re-tell, repeat; 

So it is well to acknowledge the real - 

Left hand, creased, holds down 

the opposite page; 

there upon summon of these eyes.

JT 3/2020