Journey from the Plague
Hellish sirens bend with distance
through a day’s grey mists
the sounds of birds emerge
claiming my mind’s eye
My childhood appears
my mother shields us from
freezing unbridled winds
using a butter knife
stuffing toilet paper into
our rattling cracked window frames
i follow her
mimic her at 7 or 8
i follow my mother from window frame
to porous window frame
Then
sirens
dissolve my memory again
Returned to my cloistered quarantine
do I hurl my self
into a shuttered city
emptied hollowed out
save for ambulances transporting the dead
birds and pigeons insects and mice
the trees and the flowers of spring?