I don’t know how to
thank you
for knowing the plague
its whiff
its handwriting
or voice
I don’t know how
I sat on my hands
so long.
How did I keep it out
or did I take it in
as a Samaritan
Did it get my keys?
Did my throat thrive
my scents stayed
my diaphragm smooth
as glass
How do I know what
was in me?
Alone, what
kept me company
My eyes stuffed with images from
everyone who
made images
My feet walking a trench
of an L of my
L-shaped apartment
Down, across
Down, across
The empty campus
The flowers I stole from
beds that were alone
The picnic tables and
garages that
found themselves chosen
the porches who had never
been so honored so often,
the fires in pits that let us
Thanksgiving, driveway
fires.
That you knew,
for a minute,
that everyone alive
was frightened.
The missing.
The tongue tonguing
the empty address
pokes
slithers
skis
addresses the missing
a hundred thousand
five hundred thousand
a million
the nurses asking
someone to nod
to a vent
nod to a number
the people
who shocked us all
saying no,
no,
no
shook no
to death.
the ropes that were found rotten
when we went to the sea
I used my eyes
to my students
who never saw my mouth
though I needed to pronounce
English for them to know
I still jerk
when leaving a room
alone, wait
the mask
Going On 