Lane Chasek
A Week in Quarantine
cough into your elbow and cleanse yourself
so this pandemic may magically pass us by
there’s something soothing in the imperative
of lockdown and quarantine
imagine the decline
of each neon advertisement
crayoned through the haze
of Detroit and Chicago—suddenly erased—
the engines and turbines
buzzing to the anticipation
of a thousand conspiracy theorists and angel-eyed
internet commentators with bioweapon
origin stories promenading through their minds—
this mythology is someone’s survival and refuge
from the sun-soaked outdoors
grant us refuge
grant us endless apologias and solar flares
the likes of which have never before burnt
the surface of the human race
someone’s watching us
someone’s ignoring us—
this too may pass us by
Lane Chasek is a writer and editor in eastern Nebraska whose work has appeared in Broke Bohemian, Contrast, Jokes Review, Lincoln Underground, Paragon, Plainsongs, Sheila-Na-Gig, and other journals. A featured essayist in the anthology Voices of Nebraska: Diverse Landscapes, Diverse Peoples (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), Chasek was the 2016 and 2017 winner of the Laurus Award for poetry from the English department of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
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