Ariana Moulton
Trace the Curve
What if someone told you
You couldn’t go where you normally go?
Would the you in you come undone?
Not seeing what you expect to see.
You’re not alone in your quarantine,
Except you are. Globally masked,
Tightly tonight.
Would you even know if someone had
Rearranged your desk at work, moved
Your ruler aside, borrowed your protractor
and traced the curve we aim to flatten?
It’s these flat lands where the wind sweeps
For miles, I see in my sleep, particles like dust.
Keeping us awake, watchmen
Who watch for an invisible enemy.
If you’ve never been told no
Then how would you know? You wouldn’t
Go back there, to that place you’re supposed to be.
You would have grabbed more of your belongings, that ruler.
How could you measure freedoms of the past
You’ve never lost? Until this moment, when
A mayor quotes a poet, Ms. Brooks herself,
Calling upon us to cultivate dreams in the dark.
It’s bigger than us, microscopically
And it wants to crumble you down,
To sicken you, your words break us all free
To a place where gold will attach itself
As we breathe tonight, freely.
Ariana Moulton is a teacher, a mother, and a runner, in addition to being a poet. She has taught third grade in the Chicago public schools for 15 years, and has been writing poems for much longer than that.
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