who is covid anyways?

marinating in the covid anti-closure

weeping sentiment is nothing anymore—

nothing like an empty flight

from palm beach full of

porous children seeping from

the gasses

nothing like the paper goods

aisle, the attention to the

shampoos, restocking of

Robin’s Egg hair due for

Martha’s new bob

nothing like the intimacy of collective

isolation, community of

quarantine, family of global

ephemeral paranoia

nothing like the girls and boys

growing up in masks homeschooled

no playground video games

video chat soap sanitizer

no playgrounds

nothing like the man across the jetblue

aisle whose head twitches,

pleased with his music, his

mustache, his leathery tan

and the view of the locked

dystopia from the isolation

cell window

nothing like the golden hour of

American airlines, can’t watch

the sunset don’t have a wipe

to disinfect

nothing like the looping looping looping the

melancholy song that helps

you sleep the melancholy email

that regards covid-19 and

current developments

which are looping

nothing like Friday the thirteenth

at laguardia gate 42

dappled in violet grub you

know what I mean

nothing like the embryo in aural

purgatory as the pressure screams

itself tighter still

does it go through you when I’m talking to you?

we are not welcome in new york.

nothing like the first last sunrise of

the end of the world crashing

into the seabirds of the shore

whose tiny legs will manage

just fine

nothing like your tie dyed tees and the

way they trapped the aloe vera

sun bum sweat and salty

sea air after the final purge

nothing like the dead sea all over

your tortilla chips mango

salsa and the breakup playlist

that you left in the pre-panic

nothing like the gulf side of the

florida ocean I’ve heard it’s

smooth as a fucking piece

of paper

nothing like the final semester of college

$65k alarmist pine grove

guzzling video chat universal

dimension birthed in the nothing

nothing like the crashing hi-hat

reliable four on the floor this is the

song you grow up and grew

into yourself to

nothing like your bic tapping the

moleskine is it nerve or rhythm

or blooming genius madness

nothing like rubber gloves and

clorox heathens angry elderly

spittle gleaming with

immunocompromised desire

for dread

nothing like the nap that you want

to take on the plane but you

can’t sit upright alive without

naming all the pieces as they

drip off slowly, with some

turbulence, just enough to

not take the nap

nothing like the zika mers ebola sars

swine avian dengue bubonic

black archangels of heaven’s

infirmary

and eyelids are heavy on the page

mind is weary of ending

and until the flood has

shriveled the neck will

sink into the ribs that break

as the eyelids revoke

your final commencement

there is pre- and there is post-