When I get out of quarantine
I’ll give away these ***** blue jeans,
I’ll wash my hair, I’ll drive somewhere,
I’ll breathe someone else’s air.
Oh what a happy day!
When I can put the games away.
I’ll go out to eat,
I’ll hug everyone I meet,
I’ll shake a stranger’s hand!
(I’ll do it because I can!)
No more six feet separation.
No more stinking isolation.
No more sanitizing
(That’ll be quite energizing!)
No more conference calls.
I’ll get away from these four walls.
I’ll be quite done with Zoom,
And sitting in my living room.
Let me make it clear, I’ll be outta here, I’ll throw away this screen!
When I get out, really out, when they finally, really, totally say --
I’m finished with this quarantine!
At least till next flu season.

He doesn’t understand, she thinks. It’s a sin to waste money.

She doesn’t understand, he thinks. Life is too short to worry about dollars and cents.

Life is long, she thinks. Start saving now, and our money will grow.

Who worries about the future at our age? he thinks.

It takes discipline, she thinks. You can’t eat candy every day.

Saving is like eating raw broccoli every day, he thinks.

We all need boundaries, she thinks.

I can’t live in a box, he thinks.

I would love to buy that red dress, she thinks. But I have too much self-discipline to do that.

She would look good in that red dress, he thinks. Maybe I should buy it for her.

He would probably buy that dress for me, she thinks. If I told him I wanted it.

She wouldn’t want me to buy that dress, he thinks. She’d say it was self-indulgent.

Would he buy the dress for me? she thinks. Would he do that?

She’d say it was sinful to buy that dress, he thinks.

If he bought the dress I’d have to take it back, she thinks. We need to save our money for a house.

She would take the dress back, he thinks. We’re supposed to be saving for a house.

It’s such a pretty dress, she thinks.

I guess I’m finally becoming an adult, he thinks.

I guess he’s finally becoming an adult, she thinks.

****, they think.

It's lovely
how green the trees look today,
their leaves rippling in the breeze like
a woman's hair. Springtime always made my sap run
hot, the energy blasting like a bolt
through my limbs. Now that randy charge is
a small steady pulse, faint but still there.
I take what joy remains, thankful for the
germination.

When the cinders cool and the answer seekers
pick their way through the charred rubble
what will they find? A medieval carpenter's chisel, a pair of rosary beads, pigeon droppings, the down from an angel's wing, the tears of saints.

all alone
writing this poem on my phone
hoping I hit the right keys
and I can squeeze
just one good metaphor
out of my tired brain
something that will not bore
something that will make you sure
a spark has passed between us
before the curtain of night
descends.

I had no No in my vocabulary,
No veto power,
No nix, no nullity, no negation.
I was the King of Affirmation,
Yes to this, yes to that.
I thought No would cut me off from love,
Friendship, belonging.
I couldn’t say that word to anyone,
Not nobody not nohow.
I was the Wizard of Yes.
The Emperor of Agreement.
The Yes Man to the universe.

What was I?
A character in someone else’s play,
Puppeting my way through life,
Following a program I did not write.

I had to have a word that was my own,
A firm, strong, stubborn word,
To crash the program, buck the tide.

Now I’m ready to know No.
For No has that stopping power.
No is the Final Word.
No tells you in no uncertain terms,
What you really want.
This is me, it says.
These are my boundaries.
This is my true and real self.
I’m in love with No.
No, No, No, No, No, No.
I like the way I say it, and I know
That only by shouting my No
Can I say Yes to Me.

The itch
of poetry,
I had it bad once,
Like a teenage allergy that bedeviled me
and then it was gone.
I thought I’d outgrown it.
No words
could make me sneeze
or make my eyes water.
I went many years immune to beauty,
with no urge to speak.
Never so much as a phrase, a word,
tickling me.
But I can feel it coming back;
the itch of words
that must be scratched out
or they will fester.
Come back Muse,
and scratch my back.