MARCH

MY FRIEND, NICOLETTE
She has the virus. I just heard.
How’d she get it?
Living in New York?
I know her since Sixth Grade, we took
dance classes together at the Martha Graham
School of Contemporary Dance,
and every year, at the end of our recitals
(parents welcome), we all did running leaps
across the floor, our legs spread wide in the air

One year my father said, “Why can’t you
do a split in the air like Nicolette/’
I couldn’t.

Half a century later, neither Nicolette nor I
are dancers. She married, had children, worked
for the Red Cross. I became an actress and a writer,
moved to California. I went back to New York last year
for my sister’s Memorial. Nicky was there.
The few times we talk, we laugh,
and laughing will save her,
it’s a talent, seeing life askew.

She will laugh, and I will, with her,
and just see if her warrior T-cells don’t
Inexplicably leap, legs open in a split,
like no cells anyone has ever seen, magnificent,
breathtaking, like her leaps when she was ten.
and she will heal.


APRIL

“APRIL IS THE CRUELEST MONTH�
Eighty thousand dead
In the US
And still not enough
testing

METAL FROG IN MY GARDEN
The frog doesn’t talk much
he mainly reads his book
and drinks his tea,
so it can get lonely here,
in Isolation,

but when I get smart (I can get smart)
I marvel at the sudden yellow iris
shot up in the middle of my waterfall,
sit in awe to see the brilliance of its raucous petals,
cupped up, arched down, and I remember
that sunlight kills the virus.


MAY


TANTRUM, TANTRUM!
I do not want to wear a mask!
I will not eat my leafy greens!
I do not want to wash my hands
AND ALL I WANT TO DO IS SCREAM!


I do not want to keep my distance!
It feels lonely! It feels mean!
I miss my restaurants and theaters
AND ALL I WANT TO DO IS SCREAM!

I do not want to spray the doorknob
Or the plate or fork or knife!


OK, I’ll do what people tell me,
Maybe it will save my life.


SHUT DOWN, SHUTTERED IN
I suddenly notice the eighteen-inch square,
beige and brown, checked,
and woven cotton pillow on my couch,
mostly hidden because the dog thinks it’s
his daybed


and I read the words in fancy script (in French,no less!)
“Pour que l’evenement le plue banal devienne une aventure
(To turn the most ordinary event into an adventure),
Il faut et il suffit qu’on se mette a le raconteur
(all you have to do is share it with somebody else).�

So I pick up the phone and call Megan.