Another Week, Another Month (May 2020)
       

The streets are empty, only a few cars in the train
station lot. Churches and synagogues are closed.
I read the same few pages two or three times before
I give up and put my book down. It's hard to concentrate,
impossible to center reflection, to find perspective.
My dog barks at the front door, but there's no one there.
He, too, is waiting. Neighborhood kids are strangely silent

as dusk turns into night / into day / into night. Another week,
another month. It seems ages since hyacinths bloomed and
their scent filled my yard in all directions like starlight.
Yesterday, a wren moved into the empty birdhouse. Squirrels
and chipmunks come each morning for peanuts and seed—
things still right in their world while we (in masks and gloves)
continue distancing. I want to be where I was before,

with people who know me and people who don't. This is
neither the beginning of the story nor the end. And after
this time of uncertainty, what will define us? Resilience
and hope? The cautious dust of a new and different light?
Tomorrow comes while we sleep but, right now, the way back
seems too distant to imagine. I can't remember how it feels
to hug a friend, how it feels to shake a stranger's hand.

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Copyright © 2021 Adele Kenny All rights reserved
from Edison Literary Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission