Poetry from Quarantine

Being in quarantine has been hard but also creatively gratifying for my poetry writing. I dug through some old poetry, giving it new life, edited some words written from just days before the pandemic hit the United States, and created some new poems. I found that all three of these poems encompassed the desperate, clinging nature of the human need for love and acceptance. I explore themes of family and anxiety during uncertain times, and trying to figure out the puzzle of one's own mind while also helping others.

“Road Test” (a poem from when I was sixteen, edited)

You desperately cling onto the safety handle.

I scoff, remarking on the fact that we haven’t even moved yet.

And you laugh, that kind of anxious laugh you do when you get real nervous.

Maybe you’re remembering when your mother taught you how to drive

Or perhaps you’re recollecting the first time you drove me home, only a fraction of the size I am today.

Whatever it is you remembered,

Your eyes faltered in the hot sun’s glare for just a moment

And you leaned quickly forward to catch your breath.

With a reassuring glance, I slowly backed the car out of the driveway.

“Middle of the Night at Rose Ct”

My brother’s cries at 4am

Ring out like a bell throughout our tiny house.

I wake with a start to find him kneeling at my bed.

“A nightmare” he said,

weeping fat tears onto my face.

I wiped us both dry and tucked

him in next to mine.

We slept in bed,

crammed together much like we

Were, lying in the womb

years before.

“My Father”

Lounging on his porch

With the painting in the trash

Because he’d made it for the woman

who came before his 2nd wife.

He’d collected all the things from his daughter’s ex-boyfriend:

Her cactus, dead. Her photos, crumpled.

Her good silverware, crusty with food.

When the boyfriend had handed him the garbage bag full of it,

They both held it together for a brief moment,

The body of his daughter,

Two years of her life, all contained within that bag.

She was so light.