Cook County News Herald

Quarantined


Persistent rapping on the bedroom door,
not to be denied, though it’s 3:00 a.m.
Politics, pestilence, family, finances,
remembrances of when I screwed up.
More time to dwell and obsess.
Did I really clean that grocery delivery?
What about the cards I sent in the mail?
Was I holding them when I sneezed?
I swabbed beet juice on the lintel thinking
some faux biblical protection might help.
Thank goodness for the Internet and cable-
YouTube, Netflix, BritBox, Andy Griffith reruns-
I think….
I appreciate Pluto the Dog calmly mouthing
his sage advice competing with the news.
I like to think I’ll get to all those projects of
sorting photos, cleaning, purging, exercise.
Instead, I’m simply putting on weight
with extended Happy Hours.
My four-leggeds are some company,
providing other beating hearts in the house,
though they seem to be keeping their distance,
just about six feet, it seems.

Steven M. Lukas, Schroeder

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