Safe to say
used

but better said
spent

on the wood of a deck
now peeling

it was cheap
and he claimed

that moniker
as well

Whit Howland © 2020

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!

A billiard table imprints its damp shadow
on a yellow wooden floor. The game still
unbegun, mere fragment of the sorrow
felt by the patrons whose wilted heads will
still be here tomorrow, if tomorrow comes.
Red walls distended by burning lamps
and burned out hearts beating blood through ear drums:
Reverie to the night god /   Dreaming tramps
drowning in their heads in lakes of absinthe
color of the ceiling better than being
awake but indefinitely absent.
The lamps blink, eyes floating, speak all-seeing:
Vincent, let us meet before you entreat
the crows out of your head into the wheat.

Equations
in the sand

Laid out
and toweling off

Curvatures to
algebraic form

They define her lines
shape her axis

My island of
expectation

Amid summer's long
subterfuge