Pamela Sumners
Joker

For the artistic and educational purposes of you look sad,
I have arguably violated our nation’s copyright laws to post
for you a song about the pompitous of love when I don’t
know what a pompitous is but I may sort of just a little
know what love is and I know that it’s not Christ throwing
the little old ladies with diabetes into the Hunger Games so
the money-changers can run amock in the Temple of Commerce

And I just read the state health department telling us, against
the inclinations of the Governor of this the Show-Me bone-
headed literalist state, in terms as stark as they are metaphorical,
“It’s not even the tip of the iceberg of what we can see. It’s like
the tip of Jupiter.” I read that the captain of the unsinkable ship,
the Titanic, and then Our Captain of the ship of state, struck the tip,
just the tip of the metaphorical and actual Jupiter iceberg before
they even saw it.

—Submitted 03/28/2020

Originally appeared in Poetry in the Time of Coronavirus (2020), edited and published independently by G.A. Cuddy.

Pamela Sumners is the author of a chapbook, Finding Helen (forthcoming from Seven Kitchens Press), and the full-length collection, Ragpicking Ezekiel’s Bones (forthcoming from UnCollected Press). Her work has appeared in Ucity Review, Mudlark Posters, Eunoia Review, Shot Glass Journal, Streetlight Magazine, and other journals, as well as in the 64 Best Poets anthology from Black Mountain Press for both 2018 and 2019, chosen by the editors of The Halcyone literary review. Sumners lives in St. Louis with her wife, son, and three rescue dogs, and works as a constitutional and civil rights lawyer.

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Carmeilina Fernandes-Kock
Distance Learning

Be it your TED talks or your film directors´ speeches, viewed on WhatsApp during lockdown, which
tomorrow ceases—your bodies brought up close, cradled in the intimacy of my phone. Your English,
ranging from foreign sounding to assertive, in near native tone, penetrating my study. Voices of
youth playing god. I delighted in each one of your three to six-minute orchestrations. How you
blindly jumped into the lap of my gaze, pure souls hoping to have attained the bar set by my
standards, many of you hoisting yourselves higher by the grace of method meeting substance, order,
that Cartesian water-tight solidity of demonstration becoming a thing of sheer beauty—my breath
walking the tightrope of each line of thought. The absence of classroom gave you wings to strut your
stuff to no other than myself. A privilege. Yet throughout

I found myself the student, abruptly made alert, learning to read the signs, breaking the mould,
diving into vulnerability; disarming gestures that emulated your ideas of a pro. Unaware, you let me
step into your worlds, poster corners edging your frame, your backgrounds ranging from antique
wardrobes to Ikea shelves set up by your parents on which dolls still rested or trophies stood, those
won at an even earlier age. Behind one of you I could detect a washing stand, its hanging row of pegs.
My heart sank as I listened to you speak of Jackie O. and Eleanor Roosevelt in control of their image,
only to discover you shared a bed with your ailing mother. Courageous youth unfailingly forwarding
assignments prone to betray the secrets of home, weighing down on me now, as I comprehend the
fragility of the enterprise whereby distance teaching becomes the prying eye. Confinement takes us
places we keep to ourselves yet the treasures of your minds, wrapped up in lives unfolding, your
windows casually thrust open, the blind trust you’ve shown, these are memories to behold.

Tomorrow, bearing masks, we’ll face each other once again, on that levelling ground called
The classroom. We’ll resume rethinking the world, in that little bit of paradise.
Our eyes will meet first discreetly then feed on each other’s gaze while together we zoom in on the
very heart of matters.

—Submitted on 05/10/2020

Carmeilina Fernandes-Kock am Brink is of German-Indian background, grew up in Canada, and teaches English in Toulouse, France.

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Irene Cooper
Breakfast Tarot

it seems the stuff of parlor games,
fantasy and velveteen against the cold:

fashion your fortune from vapor
impale your lonely vision on a hatpin

i jump caffeinated to battle,
steel my butter knife for an epic

staged in a William Morris spoon
who will witness this twist of fate?

William Blake! i see you naked
in your garden with your wife,

a dribble of ink on a mottled thigh,
biscuit in your beard like fairy dust

the five of cups is laid:
sepia stain in the linen, set

—Submitted on 3/28/2020

Irene Cooper is the author of the novel Committal, forthcoming from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press in September, 2020. Her poems, reviews, and essays appear in The Feminist Wire, Utterance, VoiceCatcher, The Rumpus, and other journals. She is a freelance copywriter and editor, facilitates creative writing workshops in Central Oregon, and co-edits The Stay Project.

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Jacky T
Combination Lock-down

—Submitted on 05/09/2020

Jacky T is a country boy at heart, wearing city life like an itchy woollen sweater. He battles chronic illness, so currently feels at home with the world’s preoccupations.

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Stephen Kingsnorth
A Winter Tale

What wondrous world is this,
where touch is gone,
that greeting lost?
I’m moved as single piece on board,
new site, where all see black and white;
a pawn, one step at a time,
every square delineate.
The castle is now grown my home,
the bishops kept in oblique line,
the monarchy’s protection, sign—
a posture for these straightened times.

The days become as night is long,
long pauses mark slow gong of dial,
unwinding for the highlight wind,
when turning key seems magical;
for nothing is as something now –
of no report, significant,
each plan subjected eroteme,
an interrogative become
relationships and daily course.
Shake or hug with smile and kiss
without a click and distant mist,
till lost connections be restored;
when will again I meet and greet,
Perdita find new Florizel?

—Submitted on 03/27/2020

Stephen Kingsnorth‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gold Dust, The Seventh Quarry, The Dawntreader, and Foxtrot Uniform Poetry Magazines, and Identity, as well as in the anthology Pain & Renewal: A Poetry Anthology (Vita Brevis Press, 2019), edited by Brian Geiger. He is retired from ministry in the Methodist Church and lives in Wales. Online at Poetry Kingsnorth.

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Lilyanne Kane
Radiance in the End Times

Six-string instruments serenade her respiratory illness.
She squints behind an analog camera as the voice on
the loudspeaker repeats: “You are safe / so long as you
cooperate. Stay indoors / and wait / for further instruction.”

Beyond us, outside, somewhere, there’s spools of stupendous
sunshine unwinding itself, gossamers stretching across verdant
mushrooms. There are California poppy trees heavy with blossoms
and fat-veined poppy-cock. Blissful bees collect clandestine pollen.

Inscrutably, indubitably, irrefutably— the world goes on. Nature
purrs in this pause of humanity, phallic florals and yonic fauna
perpetuating life in spite of the virus that gnaws away at the
humans most vulnerable and least responsible for this bullshit.

—Submitted on 03/27/2020

Lilyanne Kane is a non-binary lesbian poet and educator based in San Francisco. They hold an MFA in poetry from the Mississippi University for Women. Their work has appeared most recently in Mojave He[Art] Review and Sonder Midwest. They can be found on Twitter @PluralFloral.

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Theresa Yorker
The Virus

How is this America
The Land of the Free,
When so much we do now
We do remotely?

Weddings without family,
Birthdays without guests,
Funerals without loved ones,
Who would have guessed?

Every day gets longer
As shelterings persist.
Pantries grow emptier
As work days are missed.

Students miss their teachers
As they struggle to learn.
Memories are lost forever;
Graduates lose their turn.

Politicians squabble incessantly
With ever-shifting blame,
While nurses provide comfort
With dedication that does not wane.

Even in these dark times
There is still a lot of good:
Neighbors caring for neighbors,
Helping others like we should.

This virus isn’t magic;
It won’t just disappear.
Unless to the guidelines
All of us adhere.

We pray for each other;
We pray for a cure;
We pray that we stay healthy.
We pray to know for sure

That one day this will end,
And the sun again will shine.
We can have people around us
And no more Covid one-nine.

—Submitted on 05/08/2020

Theresa Yorker is a self-described “amateur, unpublished poet.” She writes, “By day I am a business intelligence data engineer who has been working from home since early March listening to too much of the daily news cycle. I was inspired to write this poem observing the vast disconnect between the decision makers and every day Americans struggling to survive.”

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Pasquale Trozzolo
Thoughts of Social UnDistancing

Nice to meet you

What if we met in a bar
What if we drank bourbon
What if it was 10:00 p.m.
What if there was a dark corner?

What if we met on a train
What if I asked what you’re reading
What if you read poems
What if I knew all the lines?

We if we met in a gallery
What if we loved the same art
What if you asked me to hold your hand
What if we didn’t stop there?

What if we met on the dance floor
What if I saw your red dress
What if I knew how to Tango
What if you liked my embrace?

So nice to meet you too.

—Submitted on on 03/27/2020

Pasquale Trozzolo is retired from a career in advertising and public relations. His poems have appeared in The St. Thomas Source. Trozzolo has also been a race car driver, grad school professor, and magazine publisher. He lives in Kansas.

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Maggie Mosher
Collective Conversations

—Submitted on 05/07/2020

Editor’s Note: This poem appears to be related to an article that appeared on Reuters on April 14, 2020, which reads, in part, “Fearing for the lives of elders who carry the Navajo language and traditions, 19-year-old Matthew Duncan put up signs on the highway from Shiprock to Farmington urging Navajos to ‘KEEP YR Tt’AA’ AT HOME.’ Tt’AA’ means ‘butt’ in Navajo.

Maggie Mosher is the author of Because of Love, which she published herself in 2011 to raise funds for the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault. A recipient of a William E. Simon Fellowship for Noble Purpose, Mosher holds a MS in educational administration from Baker University in Baldwin City, Kans., and is pursuing a PhD in curriculum and instruction at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kans.

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Deborah Turner
Wipe Out

“Sandy shores don’t bind us,”
paddling out over fish and sea-
weeds, rising high, crashing down—
sun and wind mined.
“Boards keep us afloat.

Try it out, the water’s fine.”
America said to its niggers who
made music, championed sports, rendered literature colorful. “Pleasing,
so delightful to eyes, ears.”
Until we upset the balance, ventured
in too deep—uncharted space,
ivory heights, think tanks, the front office
and that oval one.

The next wave, choppy, reigned:
“You don’t belong here.
Maneuver the Board so the curl covers corporal entities.” Not unlike
when sheriffs once paused, shifting power
to hooded masses
with eye holes too small to question.

“You don’t belong here.
So we’ll melt caps, ride resulting swells—
down Wall street, main street,
shaded campus walks—
wipe out the peppered panorama
(meant purely for us).”

Long has history, with its last word,
extended the Board, only
to take it back from curious jetsam
in every fishy tale.
Will time forget our names,
or hook them up on lines (long as trees tall)
from which to hang, if we—
remembering Tuskegee all too well—
rise with the next tide,
ask the question.
Did you do this
on purpose?

—Submitted on 03/27/2020

Deborah Turner is the author of Sweating It Out (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Lavender Reader, Philadelphia Stories, and the anthologies Testimony: Young African-Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity (Beacon Press, 1995), edited by Natasha Tarpley, and The Body Eclectic (Henry Holt, 2002), edited by Patrice Vecchione. Online at deborahturner.online.

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