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
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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