T E A R S

for Bree Cameron

In the Year and Era of Our Quarantine 
Your tears wander the vacant streets at night,
One fluvial wet footstep at a time
Desolate  &  forgiving  & not  uniformed 
Before arriving to the atrium of my breath

Though aware of each other’s existence
I know your tears  &  mine never met
Never walk the same forgotten bridge, the same boulevard,
the same graveyard, the same church, the same coffee shop,
the same restaurant, the same bar, the same telephone booth, the same tree
Until all souls, old and young, and their cluttered, cancellable  contents are  forced indoors 

But, now, just yesterday  your tears fall from their bewildering height 
Onto my digital  sleeves in broad daylight 
Soaking the cities of my enemy, flooding the crumpled  bodies of old  electronic
newspapers, sedating an army of words  &  images as they float downstream
in the digital stream towards their untimely deaths
As you introduced yourself to me for the very first time

If your tears & my tears could hold each other’s hands 
While wandering quietly & soundlessly through the different Instagram corridors as
we intimately    share the history of our melancholy, our demoralizing
lives before the Great Flood,  the 1918 Flu Pandemic, before the era
of the Me Too Movement, before the Great Depression 

If your tears & my tears could fall asleep together on this pillow and its
devastatingly beautiful  pillowcase   called  poetry
Our tears could come home after many years of meaningless, futile travels, get on
their pluvial knees to sink and soak until they are free of their human debris
Wouldn’t that be so awesome, Bree?