Why We Can't Have Nice Things

[image by Joshua Bickel, The Columbus Dispatch; image description in the poem]


Someone tweeted the other day
that the pandemic has turned us all into dogs:
We roam the house in search of food.
I have two pounds of yeast
I haven't used yet, though I plan to
make bread and bagels and more.
It's active and dry, which is what we have
in common. There's a piece of sky
outside my office door that changes
its expressions from time to time,
though its default is a glower.
I hope the pantry moths don't invade
the huge sacks of rice and flour,
so it's back to those sticky pieces
of cardboard where their little wings
twitch before they die. Often, while working,
choral music grims me into a groove
in solidarity with ancestral plaguees,
calming me with its lucid existence-
is-suffering vibe. I had planned a retreat
at the Merton monastery this June,
but by then will I even need one?
So much streams into our house
these days, but how much of it is clean?
I've been watching The Wire of late
though it makes me nervous the way
the characters get so close together,
even when they're not fighting or
having sex. Yesterday in the news
was a picture of right-wing protesters
pressing their howling faces against
the glass of a shut government door.
They were asserting their right to go out
and spread the virus. Like a zombie
attack, April Flynn said. This is why
we can't have nice things, I replied.
I practice yoga with a remote teacher
who says "fuck" a lot. Some would say
it's inappropriate, but it's comforting to me.