your shoulders shyly dream of collar bone wings
you're crowned
by the way willows bend at the words you sing
if this was our life, our nerves that clung to the page
and brace for each wound when you crawl out of the cage
would you bring me with you? i'm dying to breathe
again, to see again when i can't wake up from
this stethoscope mountainscape

here come muddy landslides
rushing down, demanding spectacles
be viewed through lens: wide
stricken by euphoria revealing
a mountainscape: your gum line
destroying homes built hillside

this is quality, the feeling worth the feel
this is beautiful even after enamel peels
this is what i want to take me, crushing quantities

You ask me
"What does it feel like
To sit around waiting for the person who you know is going to hurt you
To go ahead and get on with it?"

Have you ever tried to pretend your heart
Is a pebble at the bottom of a fast flowing river,
Cold?
Have you ever imagined it as the backside of the mirror
Where you stare yourself in the eyes
Trying to talk yourself back up,
Hard
Reflective
Insincere?
Have you ever thought what it would be like
To be the darkest part of the mountainscape
In that painting in your living room
Where you sit on your couch
Taking breaths,
Distant
But so so here.
And real.
And aching.
And bleeding.
Have you ever tried to control the cosmos?

I:

I searched an hour for my pjs
so that I could go to bed .
Quarantine has blurred my days
and wreaked havoc with my head.
A quick glance in the mirror,
I see my sanity foregone.
The pajama search abruptly ended.
I already have them on.

II:

My office space keeps moving
as I go from call to call.
Piano practice sends me upstairs
behind our bedroom wall.
Then in comes mom with Ana
to put her down for nap.
So I descend the stairs again.
End this quarantine ASAP!

III:

I’m rowing down the Schuylkill
in a race against a crew.
The art museum is up ahead
and the Rocky statue too.
Now I run across a mountainscape
and through an Alpine town.
Such fantasies! They fill my head.
I hate exercise in lockdown.

IV:

Go out to eat and see a show
the Governor just said.
It’s back to normal and back to school
so get out of your bed.
Stay in your house or six feet apart
is no longer the rule.
I dream of this most every day.
Oh! Today is April Fool.

V:

Office life is underrated
with meetings face to face.
You can criticize a job done poor
and put them in their place.
But in quarantine while on the phone
you dare not scream and yell.
The boss, she’ll hear you acting up.
She’ll come and ring your bell.

VI:

“Thank God it’s Friday,”
has lost all of the appeal.
For tomorrow will be like today
without a different feel.
I wonder did we lose,
the weekend or the week?
Is boredom about to go away?
Or is it even close to peak?

VII:

Log scale graphs are useful
for showing change in rate.
In visualizing the second derivative
they really work out great.
But if you want real people
to understand your math.
Please use less than/greater.
When you project contagion path.