I could swan dive off a high
board into this quarantine,
swim all day in hand sanitizer
before coming up for warning.
Don’t breathe.
Dizzy, I will charm the nurses
out of their rubber gloves,
cleanse the legs off strangers.
They must stay put after all.
The threat of fruit trees in blossom,
daffodils & hyacinth. Remember Eden
& so, the exodus to domicile it is.
Let us grow fat on GrubHub &
indulgent on online games & gossip.
Every cranny has been bleached
of color & still I scrub each eyelash.
My daughter is crying, her job
diseased. I tell her to take 2
glasses of wine & call me
in the morning when the market
is up a tic or a tac but really my
heart’s a fob with a drained
battery these days. If I could,
I’d cardigan her. We’d sit by
the electric hearth of Netflix
& architect cocktail parties
on cruise ships, tea lights
smiling across far away seas,
crowds chiming conversation.
We’d lick our sticky fingers,
honor the five-second rule,
kiss whoever we please.
We’d exhale.
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A frequent PRTN contributor, Heidi Seaborn is Editorial Director of The Adroit Journal and author of Give a Girl Chaos. Since 2016, Heidi’s won or been shortlisted for over two dozen awards and her poetry has been widely published. She’s an NYU MFA candidate.
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