Meredith Ann O’Connell Three Poems Hi, Neighbor (Day 2) Since when did window watching become the highlight of my day? The curtains are drawn back, the screen pushed up Elbows propped up on the sill, I count branches on the bare tree and blades of grass in the yard next door that are finally emerging But what I wait here to see is not the blue sky or the sunlight, which I miss enveloping me like a hug; nor is it the plastic flamingo decorations in the yard across the way I wait for the signs of life: a conversation held outside, dogs barking, men laying wires for telephone lines, people sitting in front of their windows, Waiting for life just like me Wrong Timing, Again (Day 6) It’s on hold, I remind myself; Not over, not finished, not destroyed But the timing is always wrong, Whenever I think I’ve found it: How do my desires stand a fighting chance against a revolution of the people? How do my desires possibly compete Against a pandemic which limits the expression of feelings and touch? You Can Read About Us in Chapter 20 (Day 87) Using terms like abandoned, deserted—evoking emptiness, silence Where have all the people gone, they ask? Their poems are silent That’s what they’ll say about us, when our time has become a story That’s how the future will look back at our unendurable, enduring present Then they will refer to it using the past tense—not now They were so lonely, stuck at home by themselves full of fear, with no reassurances, because the end was unknown and unforeseen How they dreamed the day away, wandering around only in their memories Here; there; anywhere but where they sat, caged at last —Submitted on 08/08/2020
Meredith O’Connell is a poet and occasional blogger who wrote a weekly women’s rights column during her time in the Middle East. She usually lives in Brooklyn but is now quarantining in her hometown of Sag Harbor, New York.
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