Morning trip to the wells

I go to the wells for comfort

and by wells I mean what has always

worked- or at least craved.

Chocolate, the thought of sex,

starting therapy again, a long stretch

face downward on a mat. Putting

something in a shopping cart.

Stay abed til the last possible minute,

even if the sheets have a funk.

This time it is only the comic

I started drawing in my head,

the sketch of myself with a caption,

that opens up my ill-used body,

creaks my stiff muscles, tight chest,

free of my mind. Puts despair

into motion. Airs it out.

Winter Quarantine

I exhale and imagine

my breath scattering the snow

that has been falling

outside my window, steadily,

since morning.

*

It is bad travel weather,

though that doesn’t matter.

For ten months of quarantine,

there has been nowhere

safe to go. So that I’ve stopped

even trying to move.

*

I exhale and imagine

if we could see a coronavirus float

and flurry, land

on an outstretched hand

or tongue like a snowflake.

The models of the virus

online look like that.

*

I imagine if

we could always

see our breath,

the way we do

when it’s frozen,

charging out ahead

and burning back in.

*

Imagine.

*

I am used to the feel of breath,

now, when it’s trapped,

wet, in a cotton face mask.

I used to breathe

without paying such attention.

*

If…

*

I have always been restless

in winter. But I didn’t used to

have to remind myself every day

to take such deep breaths. To count

living and breathing as a success

for the day.