One that started with a roll of the dice,

an election gone awry, a time of fire and flood.

When we started to panic at every pandemic,

went into quarantine playing quarters.

We’ve all become the evil versions of ourselves

just trying to get back to the prime timeline,

the one where everything went right,

when our memories weren’t clouded by calamity.

That butterfly that flapped its wings,

the animal virus gone rogue. We couldn’t buy

butter or bullets. We waited with bated breath

underground. When we emerge anew

it will be with new eyes, our currency

changed from cash to cashews and cheese

sandwiches. You can’t remember the taste

of food without tin. You can’t remember

how to kiss. Your sense of time scrambled.

You learned to throw a knife and gut fish.

The darkest timeline has taken us

the way of apocalypse, earthquake,

supervolcanos, and tidal waves.

We can’t take any more disaster.

We’ve buried too many bodies

and sheltered in place too long to forget.

When we started this journey it was

“nothing left to lose,” now we’re too tired

to remember how fresh fruit used to smell,

the pale pink of cherry blossoms,

the days before the coyotes took over our streets.



We’re running a Coronavirus poem once a week, after a call for submissions. You can read more information, and a listing of the poems, here.