We decided to take a walk.
If the moon and stars still existed,
they were hidden behind clouds.

Then a fog hit us like a wave, a cloud
that had run out of gas and crashed on us,
to further shrink the perceptible world.

Ordinary, walking people became vague
phantoms that could loom, in film noir
black and white out of the fog,
suddenly sharpen and colorize,
only to disappear again in moments.

Sounds, out of sync, or garbled, came sharply
from odd angles, turning that fifth sense unreliable.
Noises, at first muted, were abruptly amplified as
if the hand of that ghostly vapor ran a soundboard.

A man, moving in stalker-like silence, clops,
like a clydesdale on cobblestone as he passes close.

I half expected a distant fog horn to announce
the passing of a ghost ship where all be welcome.

Anna and I were sitting on an outdoor bench. To get some fresh air, our classes are virtual this week and we were feeling claustrophobic. I was working on a poem idea on my iPad and Anna was uploading an assignment with her computer.

The bench is by a walkway and there were a few people passing by. I asked Anna, “What’s an alternative word for paralysis?” And three rando students walking by answer my question, in less time than Anna can even look up from her Mac.

“Tetraplegia,” says a ******* the far side of the walk - who passed us right to left - her friends laughed at her for answering my question. “Palsy,” says a guy who was passing the other way, on our side - he didn’t even look up from his phone. And last, a guy behind the girls says, “standstill.”

I just look up and smile - I love this place. Everyone’s friendly and collaborative. There’s an almost homogeneous curiosity about the world.

“Maybe I should create a sidewalk, crossword-puzzling channel on Twitch?” I ask Anna, who just shakes her head, “No.”

A roommate shows me this hookup app - the consensus favorite.

“Call me crazy,” I say, “but if we’re reducing *** to something
cheap and cynical, wouldn’t **** be safer and easier?”

She frowns, as if I’ve espoused an unpopular political position
so I make a show of putting “join the app” on my to-do list
- which is like sending it into outer space.

Sleeping with someone you don’t like - or even know, seems impolite, even seedy but there’s a power to it as well - knowing I could if I wanted to - I quash that thought as it rises, like heat.

Besides, factoid: I have an imaginary boyfriend, And although my thoughts are free to roam far and wide, I’m nothing if not faithful.

A tempest night sky presses, my lattice windows shake,
as if someone’s being thrown against them, or worse yet,
a yeti's breaking in.  They lock with little levers that seem far
too flimsy to keep out the prying fingers of turbulence.

We watched a man plodding outside - obviously a student from Alaska. He was talking on his phone, his breath a continuous, cold white cloud. He slipped, careering drunkenly but managed to stay upright by assuming a surfer-like crouch.
“Where do you think HE’s going?” Lisa wondered.

Forget fall’s polite, amuse-bouche of chill, we’ve been smacked,
full frontally assaulted by the gigantic, cold-fist of winter. “Go on,”
I said, to the weather gods last fall, like an unlucky gambler on a
losing streak. “hit me!”

Now I’m searching Amazon for “flannel underwear”.

I woke up late this morning, my phone was dead. I guess I never plugged it in, I found it buried under my pillow (erah!). I barely had time for anything, just managing to cover the basics as the “Whoop” sound signaled my first virtual classroom opening. A pop-up announced that the class would be recorded and available later. “Yessss!” I thought, as I put in my airpods.

My room is surprisingly full of houseplants. There’s a ponytail palm, an anthurium and philodendrons sending down tendrils of heart-shaped leaves from shelves and tables. I drew open my curtains and the room bloomed, morning sunny. It was 22° but my windows are almost always cracked open to let in some real air.

I’m dressed in an unstylish, black school hoodie, short pajama pants, long socks and fluffy, pink slippers for my virtual class. My still-wet hair looked attractively mop-like. I began brushing it out while arranging the colored gel-pens and highlighters I use to take notes.

Was I ever starving, but I could only imagine breakfast. Ever notice how the sun looks like a giant egg-yolk? At least my Keurig was on the job - burping, whirring and dripping like a malfunctioning steam engine as it rendered lifesaving French Vanilla coffee that smelled like caffeinated heaven.

As the professor started talking about the syllabus, outlining the types of problems we’ll be working on this semester and reminding us of things we learned in our intro to econ class, a teaching assistant, in another window, asked us to press the roll-call icon and reminded us we had a paper due (this is why we read our syllabus, people). Then the assistant's window became a countdown timer showing what remained of the ten minutes we’d been given to upload the first-day’s homework.

Twenty minutes into the class, I was combed out and ponytailed, coffeed-up and positively vibrating with pleasure - I LOVE this stuff - strategies, actions, outcomes and payoffs. Student life is unnatural, stressful and myopic - but it can be thrilling too.

There was a knock on my door frame (the door to my room is almost always open), and one of my roommates, Sunny, was there. “Morning, Princess Anesthesia,” she said, teasing me about over-sleeping.

I pointed to my pink-M1-iMac screen, to indicate I was in class and she tossed me a bag. I knew, at once, that it was breakfast from the cafeteria. “I love you,” I mouthed, before turning back to the screen.

Spring Semester has begun.

The queen of winter comes.
An expressionless assassin
who feels no passion, she comes
as silently as the shadow of a cloud.

She may come crowned by aurora borealis,
or in ziggurat-like steps of paralysis,
but the song she sings freezes earthly things
and her chilly breath brings a sleepy death.
The queen of winter comes.

A deadly kiss from those frozen lips
can shatter skin like glass.
May howling hounds warn you
and blazing fires warm you.
The queen of winter comes.

I think of you often.
In the morning, late at night,
but those thoughts go unvoiced,
the mortal touch goes unfelt.

It’s easier to keep to myself,
to avert my gaze deliberately.
It’s safer to keep ravenous.
It’s simpler to bamboozle with silence.