Today you wander towards me through the apocalyptic
newsrooms and by the glow of backlist smart screens.

For you, we have emptied our schools, shuttered

the cafes, prohibited picnics by the sea. Today, I trust
only the unsettled cloudscape,

the fleeting mission of cherry blossoms

lined up here on 47^th street. Like everyone,
I overthink the fever burn of skin, the dry brush

at the back of the throat—a whole expressway

of sensations that travel through our bodies.
Dear Wild Unknown, you whom I so often adored,

looked-up to in an extended outlook of bright constellations.

You whom I’ve courted and worked to construct
in the lit room of a stanza or the breath of a line break.

Deep inside the awkwardness of my pen

you seduced with syllables—my friend with benefits.
But not now. Now you’ve emptied the greengrocers of Venice,

the local playgrounds, and my own first date at Vivacé’s—

all indefinitely postponed. Instead I venture out
to the neighborhood pharmacy, the lonely shelves—

no hand sanitizer in the land. Dear, Dear Unknown—

tell me what can we do with our bodies
now that we cannot hold hands?

I stand on the back porch and practice

my cracked aria rising up through the alleyway
as in Verona but unfortunately,

we Americans are not born singers, instead we howl
and bang pots. What can we do but cry out

onto the page? Scratch a code in curved lines and dashes—
imagining the day we will reclaim our own good names.

---