Lynne Ellis
Cobalt Blue Glass Mug
Skies are quieter since the air traffic
stopped. Theaters dark. Cars parked:
thousands of twelve-gallon gasoline pockets.
We’ve learned to measure six-feet by sight:
it’s a dead man sewn to another man’s
shoes. If a body holds a pair of scissors,
they are a barber. If a piece of sidewalk chalk,
a muralist. I bury my forearms in dirt
& flowers: an undertaker. A body
can live in an ice cave if they know
how to read melt, if they own
the right helmet. I own a camp stove.
A gold mesh cone. I’m starting
an indigo one-cup café.
—Submitted on 05/16/2020
Lynne Ellis is the author of In These Failing Times I Can Forget (Papeachu Press, 2019). Her poems have appeared in WA 129, Cascadia Rising Review, PageBoy, Papeachu Review, Poems of the Pandemic, and other journals. She lives in Seattle.
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