Ventilators in Demand
(they) don’t want mass panicsnakes for your ankles snakes for your (body) everyone maybe gets their own
(air pumps a...
The New Math
March 2020
My daughter pots plants in the desert.
In the desert, pandemic is elsewhere.
Or that’s the theorem.
If the proof is in percentages,
I tell her to...
Your Fire and Thunder
Dr. Li Wenliang, who was the first to sound the alarm on the outbreak of the pandemic, died in Wuhan a year ago, on...
Lament in Time of COVID
This morning’s news comes as relentlessly
as it has for weeks, and today I watch
as Hasidic Jews bury their dead
by the hundreds in Brooklyn, rabbis
sitting...
To Live in Interesting Times
The fluorescent light seems to struggle
against death. Not dead yet, the fixture
pulses every few or several seconds
bequeathing humility to the shadows.
The light is beacon-like...
First a light, then–
“Tag, you’re it,” cancer says
and you fall down the hole, you
or someone you love. Your father, a friend
from work, the wife of the youth...
Wednesday, March
I demand a day without so much fucking sky.
Or, so much brown earth, flattened
as though rolled and pinned
by the muted white firmament.
I loved it...
Midnight in Quarantine
The coyote has long since gone
but the old pit bull still barks
at the edge of the chain link fence
for hours without pause.
I lie in...
Shelter in Place
The family is the chosen unit of measurement for so many things. During the pandemic, we were instructed to shelter in place, and this...
Social Distancing
When social distancing, how far:
the mirage of others, ombre of their vanishing points
like—and only like—a hem stained dark,
dementing the spectrum with evanescent egg wash,...
How to Ruin Your Morning
Wake up knowing you have to go to work today. No. It's the NowTimes. So no one has to GO anywhere. You are someone,...
Mass Quarantine as Aquarium
Before everything shut down, we took a walk
through the fish, immune
inside their walls. ...