Seattle 2020

I walk a sterile line in March

We arrange ourselves in a semicircle

Around a table of strangers, careful

Not to take up too much 

Of the air in the room which hangs there

With pregnant pauses, tensions cutting

Through the line to ten hours ahead.

Our news doesn’t mirror the TV but

It’s direct, all the same: an abrupt ending. 

I walk the empty path and give wide berth

To a runner who barely gives me six feet.

The drizzle reminds me how April

Has brought us another month

Of rising ticks, canceled plans.

When I reach the end, I begin again.

We are all waiting to see 

If we can start again.

In May, the sunbeams distort my path,

My sight filled with empty storefronts and dividers

Cotton diverts my breath and fogs my view

Maybe the tableau is not this familiar street 

But rather the world of these painted rocks

Cheerily laid out in the morning dew

That say “Seattle Rocks COVID.”

June: 

We march,

We break apart.

July:              I fly away.