Mayan Caplan
In the Time
When I passed by,
You were singing and it bubbled
All through your living room
And out the window.
It was the healthiest thing I’d ever heard.
Never saw you before,
So I guess there’s one good thing
That’s come of all this.
(That, and school’s canceled).
I wonder what people did
Before everyone went on walks and
Called each other and
Fit jigsaw pieces together
And talked about just one thing and nothing else.
Homework, I guess.
I saw you outside once, too.
I was on my porch and you were walking
With earbuds in. I smiled at you
Brighter than I smile at other people
(But you wouldn’t know that).
You smiled back. I know you did,
Even though you were wearing a mask,
Because your eyes melted like cotton candy.
You also went off the sidewalk into the street
To be farther away. Just in case.
If I left my heart in a flowerpot
On your front porch,
You’d have to wait three, four days
To be safe taking it in.
It would wilt by then.
Now is not the time for falling in love.
—Submitted on 06/02/2020
Mayan Caplan‘s poems have appeared in jGirls Magazine, where she is also the fiction editor, and in the River of Words anthologies (published by the Center for Environmental Literacy at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif.) of 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2019. Caplan lives in Denver, Colo.
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