What Rough Beast | Covid-19 Edition | 05 14 20 | Sam Barbee

Sam Barbee
Beatitude-19

Farewell to breathing easy

… happy hour specials

… bad fast-food

… elective surgeries

… grand premiers

… storybook wedding

… cap and gown

… little league world series

… home run trot

… ace, set, match

… first and goal

… what Lebron says… wrong place, right time

… the 99%

… to the plasma sellers

… indigenous peoples

… the second responders

… humane solution

… unnourished pain

… her only love

… his only love

—Submitted on 05/14/2020

Sam Barbee is the author of Changes of Venue (Mount Olive Press, 1997) and That Rain We Needed (Press 53, 2016). His poems have appeared Poetry South, The NC Literary Review, Crucible, Asheville Poetry Review, Pembroke Magazine, and other journals. A recipient of a Poet Laureate Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society, he lives in Winston-Salem.

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