The empty hammock on the porch across the street
spins and spins like a pinwheel
as if holding the slight body of a sleeping child,
or a feather light in the wind that drew the snow
across the city late into the night, which shod
the bare spring earth with deep cover,
and gave us something to blanket and fill these empty days:
windows looking out to white, blank as we shutter,
succor families with meals, baths, crafts,
anything to keep a loose grasp on our old lives.
The house has never been so clean, the floors
stripped to bone with disinfectant, poisons
locked tight under sinks, hidden away from small hands
that could be harmed. But there is so much harm already.
The bleaches stink to our marrow, the alcohol
dredged from the back of cabinets tightens across palms
that shrink from touch, each forgotten motion a wince,
and we hide from each other, as if in our homes
we can find the only solace in strange times,
in the faces of those we love, in the angry tears of our child
who wants to be bigger, have more power over what happens,
as I say to her, that wanting never ends.

Published in Frost Meadow Review, March 24, 2020