The story here is oddly familiar:

Many say COVID-19 was quiet, but friendly, and stayed mostly to himself.

Occasionally, he and his wife, CATCH-22, would get into it, but nothing that involved the authorities.

Others, however, say it was just a matter of time before he blew up.

Of course, no one said anything until it was too late.

All those interviewed for this story refused to be named for fear of being targeted.

What a surprise!

Not to string you along, my dear

but we cannot simply cut ties with the past

even the inconsequential have its consequences

You might outlive regret, but that doesn't mean all is forgiven

The doctor's not in
But he makes housecalls
Especially upon young ladies
Who read one another's sacred
Journals, hoping to steal dreams
Dreams of callipygian
Dreams of tryst
Dreams of embrocation
Dreams of frisson
Each able to be held
In the hand, but
Lost to the wind
Father Physician
Is a savior of sorts
Curing them of all their ills
Yet, only for a day
Tomorrow the mind
Shall play tricks on them
Once again

~
A mix of
Startoucher
And Venus in furs

A minor astronomical event
Between luminous beings

Timean sparkles
Fast atoms escape

And in their wake
Baby satellites to bear
~

Young spark

Slipping on the shoes
Of a thespian,

A walk about
Wonderland,

Yet, in a fog
You lost your father
On final approach,

The twinkle
Of your light went out,

In quiet step,
Tenderfoot,

Turned
One degree
Too far,

And lost you were
Upon a London flat.

Birthday girl,

It's not your fault.

Just as over the course
of a year, the seasons change,
inevitably, over the course
of life, a woman's body will change.

The photoshopped
supermodel on the cover
of a fashion magazine
is an 'ideal' that does not exist.

While the allure of
youth & vitality cannot
be denied, neither can
the appreciation for time & experience.

It's the honorable path
walked by
all maidens
& matriarchs.

A path that comes with
blemishes,
cellulite,
scars & stretchmarks.

Wrapped
in every
shape,
size & skin color.

Yet, it's these so-called
'imperfections'
that render her
fascinating & unique.

A paragon of feminal
physique, so luminously
patterned &
intrinsically beautiful.

Taken by the reckless wind
Lost in distant clouds
         And here the fall of her hair
         Tethers my mind to the sky

Man.
Woman.
Ghost.
Little wind in their sail.

Boat.
Watercraft.
Impulse.
Limited space on board.

Free from heart. Free from clothes.
Drunk together for a swim.
Errant, disinterested kiss, planted
under the keel.
A sparse ****** isosceles is struck.
Parts are muted and slit-eyed.
Parts are surface tension.
Parts are counterparts.
She pulls away, running below deck
and vigorously brushing her teeth
before weeping.
The razor of night struggles to sleep.
The sharp object thrown overboard.
No one wants to be first or last.

"We're out of words and moons and stars, there's no tenderness in us..." she said. "When did our love become the stab of ultimatum?"

~
"memory runs back farther than mythology."

two years,
two months,
and two days,

in a cabin they built
near Walden Pond.

on a mission of gravity,
the heavens forming a spotlight
on centrifugal force,
abroad the hollow mind,

chronically untethered.

"I went to the woods to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms..."

this ship's captain was an architect,
but her starblazing failed
to break ground,
so this life is now a structure settled upon sand,

and way out yonder,
where there is
no blade of grass,
just weeds growing out from under the floor.

but her daughters are
grinning magnets,
passionate machines.

"copy that?...," asks Houston.

she takes a long, hard swallow,
the shadow of a bell
inspiring the astronaut in her
to shoot for incapable stars,
but the bell she hears now
is that of an alarm clock
telling her it's time to wake up:

shoulders straight.
hands free.
arms strong.
fingers stiff.
chronically untethered.

she's not looking for new days,
she is a new day,
compacted out of water,
tired of changing real estate
and showering with
other people's success.

those loud kids, her kids, play
down the hall, in the beehive.

radio jargon's on full blast too
and telling her where
to buy and sell today's instant pleasure.

she's busy now with self-stimulation,
Betty Dodson Method,
then mixing orange powder
with 100 year old whiskey
kept in the lunar module:

it's a spacewalk to eternity, faster-than-light:

she sees broken pool tables
and backyard swings.

she sees 'ordinary'
checked off on the calendar.

she sees 'happiness'
hiding in an old photo of Murphy's Camp.

she wakes to
her husband, Houston,
in a holding pattern,
she feels him moving, whispering,
and touching something
far off inside of her,
but not moored
in a specific time or place.

in search of where
she now exists
(if she even existed at all),
her memories feel artificial
in that she lacks
the emotional attachment
that comes with
actually having lived them.

there are no answers, no choices.
only reactions.
it is always going to be
that broken state of things:
these days of heaven,
chronically untethered.

"only that day dawns to which I'm awake. there is more day to dawn, I suppose. and like us, the sun is but a morning star upon being dreamed into existence..."
~

Dear diary:

Land sakes! Leofric cannot believe I carried through with it. But indeed, today I rode naked along the sparse, meager streets of ye old Coventry.

And whilst my long hair, let down for the occasion, did provide me a jot of modesty; alas! a strong breeze I am most certain granted uncivil eyes to plainly see my top half is much ado about nothing.

Nonetheless, an even more discomfiting fear shall be if some peeping tom espied his fair countess to be no natural blonde at all; just a fare-thee-well lemon juicing, miracle bra wearing charlatan.

On the plus side, I did achieve quite a lovely, even, 'no-lines' tan!

~
The method is slow
And probably dangerous

From your telescope
Fewer and fewer places
No advancing horizon

Are you rendering again?

Two miles of uncertainty
Too much undergloom
You don't remember his face

It's war of attrition
A home for you
No place to run
No place to hide
To live is to die slowly
~

Ink
blots
impossible
knots
testing the limits of
a circular drive
one hand on the wheel
the other copping a feel
of his passenger mate
dutifully nursing her neonate
foot goes down
to apply the break
fracturing fingers
is what it will take
to lessen
the voice
avoid
the slade
move
the mountain
tell me, don't floaters
eventually get flushed?

~
if you're feeling sinister tonight, come inside the darkroom. picture yourself pouring over mental images of a demure young botanist, loitering around the trapdoor of nostalgia, kissing someone new for the first time.

now imagine she is conscious and clustered in titillating blur, her smile beachy and airborne, with only the slightest suggestion that something troublesome is lurking underneath.

can you see her double exposure? totally tranquil, she poses with an arsenal of poisonous plants, as if she’s already slipped their venom into your tea.
~

We now return
to your regularly scheduled dream.
Do the math: ducks in the pond
swim upstream to spawn supreme.

Then pay it forward
as a string of numbers.
Continuous in series,
strung out and unencumbered.

There's some **** saxophones
lifting off in tune to the rhythm method.
Save the soft jazz for when you're really in the mood,
and read a bedtime story instead.

Vision begins when the lids
are closed and threading the daisy chain.
This is where we
place the refrain:

Caution--unstable, but microwavable.

The lines blur
where the vertical and horizontal collide.
Can't stand the swimming in the head,
yet enjoy the peripheral ride.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure,
even as far deep down as this chasmic seabed.
Living with technophobia,
But married to sensory overload instead.

Making new babies in safe mode.
We lose sight when plugged too long into this hub.
Just another anxiety in need of a pill
--join the club.

We meet where there's free Wi-Fi
so battery life doesn't drain.
This is where we
repeat the refrain:

Caution--unstable, but microwavable.

There's no line for
implants or alcohol

Autumn leaves fall in time
not just for October

Voices are liminal
neither hide nor hair

*** is a capricious contest
where anyone can be assassin

Limitless horizons abound
where even bottomfeeders
fear to tread

Welcome to phase II
It's only the beginning
(of the end)

from the castle ruins
to the stacked pipes
and tunneled waters
of metropolis

we alone
—family in darkness

layers of india ink
hide useless machines

pressing country skin city bone
into amalgamation

hotwired airfield wings
hovering over abandoned
fairgrounds

covered in chains
and cotton candy

enslaved
sweetened

—so the pill goes down with ease

this is our home
this is where we live

life is zenith
future is chaos

Room and pillar
Let me be your guiding shaft
Atmospheric pressure
Let me be your natural draft

Atticus Finch
Let me be your inner last laugh
Cold determiner
Let me be your unsuspecting half

The sign in the window says
Closed until the light of day

Broken bone
Let me be your sling and marrow
Agitated Polaire
Let me be your tight-laced narrow

Confounded Plath
Let me be your children's tomorrow
Germ warfare
Let me be your biological sorrow

The word on the street is
Nothing's gonna change until the light of day

Open minefield
Let me be your measured step
***** mother
Let me be your usual suspect

Unwanted child
Let me be the tears when you last wept
Unwanted immigrant
Let me be the ground where you last slept

The writing on the wall signals
Critical times until the light of day

lumière du jour
Chérie

Down one side,
Up the other,
The kids have you
Climbing up the walls,
Count me out.

Say it isn't so,
Words along the way
Spell it every kind of wrong,
Take it easy,
Life is a merry-go-round,
Learn-as-you-go,
Flip of a coin,
Shop of horrors.

So there's no need for panic,
It's a moving picture,
Just keep your extremities
Inside the vehicle at all times,
Otherwise limbs may fall.

Serafina was a skydiver
And she was always falling.

Jimmy was her instructor
And the next in line.

"The thrill of love," she said,
"Is about how high you can climb."

If the moment's spent
She parachutes out.

A risk,
No doubt.

But on she plays,
Crossing her fingers

This idée fixe
Never comes crashing back to earth.

~
Cotton duck canvas
on careful days
in a closed room,
intersecting tension,
energy and interest
for strangers to interpret

Three bashful belles
and lovers of art
undressed as a figure study,
cloistered together
in a line of beauty
for moral support

Their congregation assembled
in glorification of
angelic landscapes,
tempered by the mysteries
within convexity's arboretum

In unequivocal parts and gradation,
where good posture
and graceful presentation
count in equal measure,
to create Hogarth's
line continuous
--the Analysis of Beauty,
bended at the waist
to spread light through the canopy

During such exhibition
the belles whisper
under the rose,
of war and shopping lists,
they seem to avert eye contact,
gazes fixed to
the eternal sphere
ticking on the far wall,
never directly into the eyes
of those who come to
paint their *******
with sandalwood
~

Take me back to a time
when a vow
was the color of
everyone's tomorrow

Take me back to a place
where a promise
never led to
man's great sorrow

Where the breeze
would linger in the grass

No one ever questioning
how long it would last

~
Sheltered within her cryochamber, the offspring of Armageddon dreams of play. She swims in an algal bloom that no longer stings like jellyfish. She floats on the surface of content, far removed from the synthetic sea and its plastic isles. She dwells in a bubble, but her mind hangs free as a halo, soaring with clouds. But these are not the skies that sense their own act of vandalism. This is the space and ceiling of a child's mind, in her capacity to absorb disturbance and rest her tiny, fragile hope in pretended, unclaimed worlds.
~

Broke through the dark
by wounding one of its own

La luna lone

Made a hole in the heart
of my midnight

Bleeding out acetylene light

Grief is the haze

A mist shrouding reality
within these closing days

scavenger bride,
she counted periods
before the children came along,
but never suspected
eyes like bottles
beginning to blue,
a tangle of scars
hermetically sealed,
the new order of
a broken romance,
dead love cassettes
in the glove compartment,

her cold and empty
constellations,
like cold breath
passing through a beam of sunlight,
grid of points, pendulums,
the ratio of freckles to stars,
no subtle countenance,
martinis and bikinis,
soft ******* and ice cream,
slight, elusive things, on a beach
with no more meaning,

the repeating pattern of
her mistakes and reliefs,
a preservation of decay,
sustained by the tiny
human fault line
in that oneiric hinterland,
between dreaming and waking,

she draws around the noise
and the clearings,
she creates within that sightline
the way her sadness can feel
comfortable,
an extension of loss that turns
her ruins into a home.