Metaxyturn Diaries

Ducks ride from the top
of the wave to the bottom
over and over

they seem built for it
with you coronavirus
there is no place to hide

at the top or the
bottom you are the human
looking straight through me

Is it old age or
the coronavirus that
makes my mind hover

over uncertainties
like an orchestra at a
fermata? Please hold

the delicacy
of our first kiss at the door
a shade longer, thanks.

From a bench I watch
ducks bob in the sunny bay
under cloud bellies.

Black bits and white bits
flash randomly together.
The sight of it saves

this hour from the rest
coronavirus preserves
from fellow feeling.

No greater proof need
I than this of the beauty
of the fertile void.

A raw day, but here’s
a border of daffodils at
the edge of the bay.

Sinking docks, weathered-
grey houses, I mightcould be
quite happy living

and dying here. There
goes the calm of my daily
coronavirus

constitional.
You never know what you will
know walking around.

The geese splash down and
cackle ‘coronavirus’
but they do not stay.

They power up and
leave the dark water for grey
skies, majestic, as

colors flash from the
throats of warblers and corvids
and other small birds.

It’s like a quick blush
of innocence from nowhere
and with no downside.

Come walk with me—-we’ll
not bump into each other
lest the virus spread.

People are walking
more on Narragansett where
they can see the ducks.

You can feel alone
outside the PTX Lounge
leaning against the

brick wall with the mer-
maid mural. The cocktail she
hands you is yourself.