“Notice One Thing Every Day”
(FB advice on living through pandemic)
No one says the rules of the game. I notice first
a swarm of bees. That’s a lie. There were
at least one thousand visions before that moment,
but the swarm is the thing that means.
It menaces and sparks, shimmering from a distance
so that I keep moving closer, squinting,
until I hear it. I spot the single bee
closest to my face at the same time that I recognize
the rising hum, the engine of a wild herd
circling in discs of sunlit pollen. Holy
dread, so much elation in the throng, the ring
of peril and delight, the whole risky world on show.
ξ
Scourge
One year, there was a plague
of white-winged moths
that mobbed the windows
and pressed their bodies over the surfaces
of doors so that every opening
brought a living curtain gusting in
and soon the smell of burning wings
sizzling on hot bulbs.
They darkened the corners,
shadows that fluttered like delicate lungs.
Awake in the night, I watched the windows,
where their silhouettes crept across the glass.
I was never sure if they were inside
or out. I was afraid of breathing
one in as I slept. I killed them
and hated myself for the slaughter.
When they disappeared, I hardly noticed
how the nights became lighter
despite the coming cold.
ξ
Found Objects
Whatever we are looking for,
the getting of it involves surfaces.
A neighbor pleads for gloves, so we promise
to find some. We wear our scarves
bandit-style and brave the air
for food, for alcohol, the cleaning kind
and the drinking kind, for cat food.
Of course, someone asks,
You are risking your life for a cat?
Here is how I say yes:
I nod at the nectarine blossoms, first
sign; I nod at the crocus tips
pushing color
into any friendless square of light;
I am nodding as I run the empty streets
and nodding at neighbors pocketed on their porches;
I am nodding along to the song
in my head, the unfortunate tune,
that falling bridge, those children swinging
mirthful in a ring before falling.
ξ
In the Days of Silence
In the box of rooms, static hangs like a cloud.
So many devices I am shaking
my head like my father, forehead wrinkles
he loved from birth; the story goes
he did not want me
until he saw my monkey face
and knew I was his
kindred frowner.
He is gone one year,
but here in my worried pacing,
in my impatience with the dishwasher rack,
the little failings everywhere,
I hear his sighs,
exasperation with the inconvenience
of conveniences, and underneath
an eye roll, some laughter rattles.
ξ
Droplet
No turned cheek, no knowing
who’s been stung, Cupid’s arrow
strung with something more cement
and sodden. Spring motions you
to benches, branches, breathing
all which harbor those zombie pods,
invisible, profligate,
though everyone looks more or less okay.
Neighbors wave and call,
their voices carry, their exhalations
mix with yours. The illness hunts
like Puma are said to track their prey, silent above
until they fall and fell you, that last blur
of muscle, blue sky, lost pleasures.
ξ
Rebecca Aronson is the author of ANCHOR, forthcoming from Orison Books 2021; Ghost Child of the Atalanta Bloom, winner of the 2016 Orison Books poetry prize and winner of the 2019 Margaret Randall Book Award from the Albuquerque Museum Foundation; and Creature, Creature, winner of the Main-Traveled Roads Poetry Prize (2007). She has been a recipient of a Prairie Schooner Strousse Award, the Loft’s Speakeasy Poetry Prize, and a 2018 Tennessee Williams Scholarship to Sewanee. She is co-founder and host of “Bad Mouth,” a series of words and music. Find her at https://www.rebeccaaronsonpoetry.com/