Abigail Welhouse
March
The melody of an ice cream truck on a near-empty street in Sunset Park.
The driver wears gloves and as he hands an ice cream cone to a customer,
I’m not sure if he’s a hero or a health risk. The people in line are too close
together, but maybe they’ve been together? My eyes are changing.
I take the dog for a run. I run now. I’m not a runner. I want
to be a fighter that never has to fight. My dog, Richie, stops
and stands on his hind legs. Across the street, a little girl
with a serious face. I wave. Her mom pulls her forward.
At the grocery store, my heart beats faster and over the loudspeaker,
a song: “We’re never gonna survive…unless…we get a little crazy.”
A week ago, the flute repair woman said she wasn’t panicking.
Still, she stepped outside when I started to play.
A week ago, at the cafe, the owner said she wasn’t panicking.
She said, “I can make soup from a stone.”
Abigail Welhouse is the author of the poetry chapbooks Bad Baby (dancing girl press, 2015), Too Many Humans of New York (Bottlecap Press, 2016), and, with graphic designer Evan Johnston, the graphic poem Memento Mori. Her poems have appeared in The Toast, Yes Poetry, Ghost Ocean Magazine, and elsewhere. Online at welhouse.nyc.
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