Quarantine
I.
During this pandemic
it’s not so much that we’re
prisoners in a cell
behind bars. It’s more
like being kept in by
rays of light we can’t see,
invisble death and off and on
wrinkles of fear, afraid to talk, to
embrace our children, friends.
II.
Unlike the whooping cough
quarantine of the 1930’s
with a big red square sign
on the front and back door
announced to the world shame,
forbidden by law
to leave the house
or let anyone in. We
understood whooping cough,
could see it. Smell
in our home, the result.
One December morning
when I could take no more
of being cooped up,
of fever, coughing, vomiting blood,
no more of mother’s
homemade cures
I escaped
out the back door
into family legend.
In my Dr. Denton’s
flapping like a scarecrow.
Barefoot. The air
was frigid enough
to glue my nostrils shut,
wind biting, snow crust knife
bloodying my thin bare shins
The Last Time We Wore Masks
At nightfall no moon, no stars
but mud falling from the sky
between rain drops, until it landed
dried to sparkling, glassy sand
heavy ash a gift from Mt St Helens
50 miles away, half a life ago. Uninvited
guest with us day after day
too heavy to be washed away yet
was rising swirls of clouds behind
speeding cars. We raced through
the dusty wind, which
choked carburetors, choked us.
We didn’t stay indoors
wear masks, we survived we’re
here most of us, the ash is
a dim memory, subtle reminder
of violence, eruptions. Now rarely
found, it joined humus and duff
enriches the soil of our gardens.
Sometimes in deep woods
it still dusts fir boughs grey snow
or drifts behind a log on a stream
thread in the foothills it hides.
Even today an ignored remnant,
grains of some unread codicil
from deep beneath the earth.
The Empty Chairs of February (2024) is poet and translator Carlos Reyes’ 16th volume of poetry. He is a world traveler but makes his home in Portland, Oregon at the base of an inactive volcano.