Three Poems Under Quarantine
Tres poemas desde la cuarentena
Tanya Huntington
WHILE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS REMAIN INTACT
there are aspects of reality
hammered out daily
hammered into our brains
unnaturally
alarms sounded
before dawn
and so we never awaken
rather we are roused
and always at the same time
no matter what dreams may come
(speaking of which
why does it have to be 6:30 a.m.,
why not 6:42?)
aspects
that send us off to twist fibers
fashion cords
tie knots
and thus
arbitrariness becomes order
throwing our kingdom of this world
into a dystopian impetus
meant to cast us outward
not inward
a dynamic that’s centripetal
not centrifugal
as if we were the net
and not the fish
A DEATH FORETOLD
if it’s all the same to the universe
and apparently
it is
I’d rather die some other death
in lieu of the current pulmonary rage
the death I’d choose would be less obvious
not the kind of demise you see coming a mile away
like when you walk across the Mississippi River Bridge
after rehearsing Euripides
and think
this cold is going to kill me
while the frost manifests its presence on your breath
climbs up your nostrils
pastes your eyelids shut
overruns your lungs
in conclusion
since life is mediocre
accidental
brief
at least give me a death
not quite so predictable
so anodyne
come on
surprise me
UNDERLYING CONDITIONS
all forms of contagion
display chinks
in the ironclad armor
of our reality
the way a disease
is conveyed
betrays vulnerabilities
we failed to see
in this case
how consumption
consumed us
chewed us up
spit us out
spraying
infectious droplets
along the way
if you stop the world
the economy gets off
or so we are told
but the seemingly solid
has always been
precarious
because of us
constantly
crushing our surroundings
because of us
never having learned
to live lightly
the virus is the hand
that lifts the veil
that shrouded
our underlying conditions
so none could see
just how sick we had become
Tanya Huntington is the author of Martín Luis Guzmán: Entre el águila y la serpiente, A Dozen Sonnets for Different Lovers, and Return. Her most recent book is Solastalgia (Almadía / UAA, 2018). She is Managing Editor of Literal. Her Twitter is @Tanya Huntington
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