Sarah Van Arsdale
Instructions for Surviving A Pandemic

ONE

1. Listen to the news, ear pressed to the radio, unable to predict what will happen next in the plot of this science fiction story in which you’ve awoken.
2. Try to sleep, with the ambulance sirens, and the shadows crossing the ceiling, marking lines and squares.
3. Learn how to make facemasks. Learn the word “cubreboca.”
4. Wear your cubreboca, idiot.
5. Be afraid every time you leave your apartment, every time you approach a person outside, even someone you know, even a friend, with whom you’ve enjoyed dinners in your apartment, for whom you’ve cooked a roast chicken, who brought bottles of wine, or cookies, or little gifts, who invited you to their house, in the same way. No, don’t hug. Don’t kiss. Look at each other with your eyes wet with fear.
6. Wash your hands for twenty seconds, while conjugating your new verbs in Spanish: touch, predict, long for.
7. Cry, and don’t cry.
8. Give thanks—to whom?—that you’re not a doctor, or a nurse, or an essential worker in a store, who works for a crap salary, and now is submerged in danger.

TWO

1. Realize that you’ve arrived at the limit. Decide to move to your little house in the mountains, ashamed at having this option, for all your many good chances in life. Still, pack your bags.
2. In the country, start to feel less fear. Start to sleep at night, in the enormous silence of the country, punctuated only by the crickets and the owl hooting through the redwoods.
3. Notice that the natural world is still in pursuit of life; the grass, greening, the sky going blue, the normal cycle of birth and death beginning for another summer.
4. Don’t listen to the news of your ruthless president; he has a knife ready for your heart.
5. Remember how your mother, when the Twin Towers fell, told you that every generation believes they’re in the final days of the world, that they have the most devastating challenges.
6. Page through a novel, a book of poems. Hope you can concentrate.
7. Wish your mother could still be here.
8. Save your money. Adjust your spending. Ask yourself if it’s better to sell your apartment in the city. Ask yourself if the university will hire you again in the fall. Ask yourself if you’ll have health insurance after the year’s end. Ask yourself—and don’t ask yourself anymore.
9. Some days, feel as if you’re the most fortunate woman in the world.
10. From your window, continue to love the world in its small details: the chipmunk with its perfectly painted stripes, its huge dark eyes, on a branch of the lilac; the cut melon on your blue plate; the butterfly preparing for his long trip. And, your new Spanish words: strengthen, equilibrium, accustom.
11. Believe that this pandemic isn’t the end. Believe that one day you’ll return to Mexico.
12. Believe that you can give hope to your students. Believe you can affect your government   that has created such terrible deterioration.
13. Believe that you’re still in pursuit of your real life, your only life.

THREE

1. Look, the fire is coming.

Sarah Van Arsdale con Adán Paulino Altamirano
Instrucciones para sobrevivir una pandemia

UNO

1. Escucha las noticias, oído apretado junto a la radio, sin habilidad para predecir que pasará después en la trama en esta historia de ciencia ficción en que despertaste.
2. Intenta de dormir, con las sirenas de las ambulancias, y las sombras cruzando el techo, marcando líneas y cuadros.
3. Aprende cómo coser cubrebocas. Aprende la palabra “cubreboca.”
4. Lleva tu cubreboca, tonta.
5. Ten miedo cada vez que sales del departamento, cada vez que te acercas a otra persona afuera, incluso alguien que conoces, incluso un amigo, con quien disfrutabas cenas en tu departamento, para quien cocinabas pollo asado, quien traía botellas de vino, o galletas, o regalitos, quien te había invitado a la casa suya, de la misma manera. Ahora, no se abrazan. No se besan. Mirase con ojos mojados de miedo.
6. Lávate las manos por veinte segundos, mientras conjugas tus verdaderos verbos en español: tocar, predecir, anhelar.
7. Llora, y no llores.
8. Da gracias—¿a qué?—no eres una médica, o enfermera, o trabajadora esencial en una tienda, que trabaja por salario bajo, y ahora, sumergida en peligro.

DOS

1. Date cuenta qué hasta que aquí llegaste. Decide mudarte a tu casita antigua en las montañas. Avergonzada por tener remedio, por todos de tus azares buenos en tu vida. Aún así, empaca tus maletas.
2. En el campo, empieza a tener menos miedo. Empieza a dormir en la noche, en el silencio enorme del campo, solo puntuada por los sonidos de los grillos, y el búho que ulula por las secuoyas.
3. Nota que el mundo natural todavía esta en pos de vivir; el césped verdear, el cielo azulear, y el ciclo normal de nacimiento y muerte comienza por un verano más.
4. No escuches las noticias de tu presidente despiadado; el tiene un puñal listo para tu corazón.
5. Recuerda como tu madre, tras que Las Gemelas se cayeron, te dijo que todas las generaciones creen que están en los últimos días del mundo, que ellos tienen los desafíos más devastadores.
6. Hojea a una novela, un libro de poemas. Espera que puedas concentrarte.
7. Anhela que tu madre todavía estuviera aquí.
8. Ahorra tu dinero. Ajustar tus gastos. Pregúntate si sería mejor vender tu departamento en la ciudad. Pregúntate si la universidad te contractaré. Pregúntate si todavía tendrías seguro de salud hasta el fin del año. Pregúntate—y no te preguntes más.
9. Algunos días, siente como si la mujer más afortunada del mundo.
10. Desde el ventanal, sigue amando el mundo en sus pequeños detalles: la ardilla pequeña, con sus rayas pintadas perfectamente, con ojos grandes y oscuros, en una rama de la lila; el melón cortado en tu plato azul; la monarca que se prepara para su viaje largo. Y, tus palabras españolas nuevas: fortalecer, equilibrio, acostumbrarse.
11. Cree que esta pandemia no es el fin. Cree que algún día volverás a México. Cree que puedes dar esperanza a tus estudiantes. Cree que puedes afectar el en tu gobierno que se ha deteriorado tan terrible.
12. Cree que todavía estás en pos de tu verdadera vida, tu única vida.

TRES

1. Mira, el fuego se acerca.

—Submitted on 10/01/2020

Sarah Van Arsdale is the author of The Catamount, a narrative poem with her watercolor illustrations (Nomadic Press, 2017). She is the author of the fiction works In Case of Emergency, Break Glass (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2016), Grand Isle (State University Press of New York, 2012), Blue (Univ Tennessee Press, 2003), and Toward Amnesia (Riverhead Hardcover, 1996). Her poetry and essays have been published in many journals. Van Arsdale teaches creative writing in the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. sarahvanarsdale.com

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Cammy Thomas
Without Outside

rain is banging the skylights
outside are beauty and contagion

the news says the earth has stopped shaking
since all our machines have stilled

across the street the field
blooms with scilla deep deep blue

I type with raw clean fingers
and think of my absent children

how can I live without them
how can they live without outside

do I have a regulation mask
can I alone make a wheel or fire

shall I sew something amazing
some monster face I wear quietly

this is the long haul
we must be patient and kind

grass and moss are greening
bees next door buzz the hives

a friend who lives alone asked
when will anyone I love touch me

what do the birds do
when it rains like this

—Submitted on 09/30/2020

Cammy Thomas is the author of Inscriptions (Four Way Books, 2014) and Cathedral of Wish (Four Way Books, 2005), winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her new collection, Tremors, is forthcoming from Four Way in 2021. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poet Lore, Image Journal, Tampa Review, The Missouri Review, and Salamander, as well as in the anthology Poems in the Aftermath (Indolent Books, 2018). She lives in Lexington, Mass.

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Cammy Thomas
Chilling Kills

I’m a killer
from my living room
among my lovely things

a killer swimming
in a cool pool
trying not to hurt anyone

under my own
tall trees a killer
everything about me

kills even in my everyday
shoes even in
my cool pool

in my living room
I take it as a given
nothing wicked comes

mowers mowing
dust vacuumed away
while I’m somehow killing

I take it as a given
how clean we keep it
how wicked

chilling kills
of people I don’t see
because I’m vacuuming

how clean we keep it
my America
how free of weeds

—Submitted on 09/30/2020

Cammy Thomas is the author of Inscriptions (Four Way Books, 2014) and Cathedral of Wish (Four Way Books, 2005), winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her new collection, Tremors, is forthcoming from Four Way in 2021. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poet Lore, Image Journal, Tampa Review, The Missouri Review, and Salamander, as well as in the anthology Poems in the Aftermath (Indolent Books, 2018). She lives in Lexington, Mass.

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Cammy Thomas
Riddles

What blocks breathing to protect breath?
What leaves a three-day residue on a table?
When do uncounted debts become unpayable?
When am I close enough to death?

How does fear attach itself to my hands, my feet?
Why is the doctor’s office more dangerous than home?
How is heroism staying indoors alone?
When do airplanes become obsolete?

When do exhalations almost become visible?
When can I hear only my voice in a choir?
Why is the beach forbidden when most desired?
Why must I learn to flee the invisible?

Where does boredom cross paths with dread?
When is my lover contagion instead?

—Submitted on 09/30/2020

Cammy Thomas is the author of Inscriptions (Four Way Books, 2014) and Cathedral of Wish (Four Way Books, 2005), winner of the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her new collection, Tremors, is forthcoming from Four Way in 2021. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poet Lore, Image Journal, Tampa Review, The Missouri Review, and Salamander, as well as in the anthology Poems in the Aftermath (Indolent Books, 2018). She lives in Lexington, Mass.

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Judson Evans
September Covid Journal: 9 Haiku

mass stranding
of red tide squid—
Trump rally

late summer moon-viewing—
even the moon
is masked

politicized times
noticing the color
of the mailbox

Nightmare Tech—
everyone I hate
in a zoom box

Mega-Church
pancake breakfast
superspreaders…

reopened beach—
broken bottles
not yet sea glass

What stays in Vegas?
disinfecting the dice
throw after throw

measuring the pandemic
by lengths
of her hair

weekday morning
the other “zoom”—

—Submitted on 09/28/2020

Poems by Judson Evans have appeared in Pedestal Magazine, Contemporary Haibun Online, Cleaver Magazine, Interim, and Salt Hill Journal, among other journals, as well as in the anthologies New Smoke: An Anthology of Poetry Inspired by Neo Rauch (Off the Park Press, 2009), Viva La Difference: Poems in Response to Peter Saul (Off the Park Press, 2010), and The Triumph of Poverty: Poems Inspired by Nicole Eisenman (Off the Park Press, 2012), all edited by John Yau. Evans is a professor of liberal arts and sciences at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

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Marjorie Moorhead
Portal

There’s a bruise in the crook
of my arm
a portal
the thinnest skin

access
to my heart
a bruise, where the needle went in
and prodded

trying to get blood to flow
a letting (blood letting)
necessary to check
and see how I am doing.

The bruise
a yin-yang now of purple and yellow
takes me back
The day I saw them on your arm,

grayish black    a whole row
“tracks”       the mark of a journey
a descent
a road to the end

an escape route
when you stepped on that path
there was no leaving it
you managed to stray    for awhile

you stayed
                     But then,
you left
                     for good.

—Submitted on 09/27/2020

Marjorie Moorhead is the author of the chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019), and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). Her poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Porter House Review, Verse-Virtual, Rising Phoenix Review, Amethyst Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including most recently Covid Spring (Hobblebush Books, 2020). 

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Marjorie Moorhead
Before It Goes, Remember

Remember when you could sleep
at the end of day, with expectation
that upon rise,
our world would be okay

When you felt a sense
of balance under your feet;
connection to earth and sky
Because they were alive

and well. And you could tell that
from abundance. Birds in the air,
flowers in the field, bees in the hive
Remember

when clouds were clouds
and not hovering doom
foretelling fire storms, flood,
Polar ice ablation

Remember when you felt we were marching
toward Justice
maybe too slowly but at least
in that direction

When you believed
in election
being fair and true representation
without question.

—Submitted on 09/27/2020

Marjorie Moorhead is the author of the chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019), and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). Her poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Porter House Review, Verse-Virtual, Rising Phoenix Review, Amethyst Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including most recently Covid Spring (Hobblebush Books, 2020). 

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Marjorie Moorhead
Connection

          after “You Are the Everything” (R.E.M., 1988)
          for Max-Henry

Sometimes it feels I will never sleep
dark, dark is the night
Afraid of the world; the world we’ve made
dark is the night

Afraid of disconnection. Imagine riding
in a car; try to imagine—there is no internet!
The windows surround you
and point out the stars

Press your face to the glass
gaze out at the sky. It’s vast
and winking; spilling
with sparkles twinkling

You’re moving through space
white lines shoot by; a rhythm
to the night. Secure in this vessel
driven by others, you trust in the future…

Sometimes it feels I will never sleep
dark, dark is the night
Afraid of this world that we’ve made
dark, dark is the night

Go back to a sense of wonder Try look out
at the birds in your tree, living
outside of your window
they’re there for you to see. Why?

Put down, put down the phone. Use binoculars.
Yellow wings match perfectly the changing leaves.
See this blending has a purpose;
puzzle pieces nestle into their places

—Submitted on 09/27/2020

Marjorie Moorhead is the author of the chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019), and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). Her poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Porter House Review, Verse-Virtual, Rising Phoenix Review, Amethyst Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including most recently Covid Spring (Hobblebush Books, 2020). 

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David P. Miller
Angelic Ghazal

Brethren, shrug your shoulders, yawn. The killed were “no angels.”
Who’ll hose the blood away? Our high-fivin’ bro angels.

Prez gotta have a pic clutching Prez Bible upside down.
Prepare ye the tear-gas way, arch-roboangels.

One body, brown, four hours sheeted silent in the street.
Flatlined on the double yellow, feed for crow angels.

Very unfair, sez Prez, people to genius me are so unfair!
So bless their souls with rubber bullets, status quo angels.

Turn in your hymnals to Lord, we fear for our pale lives.
Now sing sound cannons, let them blow, angels!

Bullets no-knock through bedclothes. Justice pinkslipped at the curb.
I’m sick of your golf junkets, God. And your damned slow angels.

—Submitted on 09/27/2020

David P. Miller is the author of Sprawled Asleep (Nixes Mate Books, 2019) and The Afterimages (Červená Barva Press, 2014). His poems have appeared in Meat for Tea, Hawaii Pacific Review, Turtle Island Quarterly,  poems2go, riverbabble, and other journals. He is retired from a career in library services, and lives in Boston.

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David P. Miller
A Shroud of Synonyms

          Lay back the darkness for a salesman
          who could charm everything but the shadows
          —Edward Hirsch

—Submitted on 09/27/2020

David P. Miller is the author of Sprawled Asleep (Nixes Mate Books, 2019) and The Afterimages (Červená Barva Press, 2014). His poems have appeared in Meat for Tea, Hawaii Pacific Review, Turtle Island Quarterly,  poems2go, riverbabble, and other journals. He is retired from a career in library services, and lives in Boston.

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