Covid-19 Journals, June 3 and July 12

June 3 Covid-19 Journal

In this dream I was taking care
of a blind boy who was a pianist,
a prodigy.  I bought his CD.  There
was nothing to worry about being close
because God was with us.  But when
I awakened I realized this wasn't true.
It was a day when you had pruned
the quince and the forsythia, a day
of azure sky.  But there were
demonstrations in all the cities
and trash cans burning, and armed
militia white supremacists were taking
to the streets in Philly. I went for a walk
around the park wearing a mask to protect
myself from Covid-19, but many weren't
wearing masks. I moved 6 feet distant
from the nearest walker, and thought about
my daughter keeping safe, there in her
city dwelling, and the people who had died
on ventilators.  I thought about the yard
and our time of peace, our small corner of peace.

 


 

July 12 Covid-19 Journal

The fans whir in the heat of mid-summer.  Strong coffee at noon.  Solitary hours an interior dialogue.  An interior white moth floating.  He went to the parking lot and saw unripened grapes.  Masks falling from the zenith onto the road.  "What kind of mask do you wear?" asks my friend.  I dreamt of going to her house last night, and her son, gay, his photos on the wall.  Like my daughter, a trans daughter, she changed her identity into a woman's body.  She can't go out due to Covid-19, only for a little shopping.  He played "Sunny Side Of The Street" just now on soprano sax.  I played "It Could Happen To You".  Pray it won't.  She told me of the cousin who caught it, serotonin depletion after 4 months still ill.  Solitary hours, reading, do tai chi, strong coffee and the rabbit who died under our car, of a rabbit illness we think.  The fans whir in the heat of mid-summer.

 

 

Judy Katz-Levine

Judy Katz-Levine has a new book out, The Everything Saint, available from Amazon and published by WordTech Communications. Her other books include Ocarina and When The Arms Of Our Dreams Embrace. A chapbook, When Performers Swim, The Dice Are Cast, emphasizes her work in jazz. Poems and translations have appeared recently in Salamander, Blue Unicorn, Ibbetson Street, Miriam's Well, Writing In A Woman's Voice, and Peacock Journal Anthology. Also a jazz flutist, she enjoys playing jam sessions in the Boston area.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - 23:11