Pandemic

By Summer Awad

what does empire look like
in slow motion

what of nine-to-fives
stripped of their ticking clocks

shelves – aching
from stock and restock –
baring us their bones?

–

what do you make of
shuttered cafes

laptops and coffees
on the couch –
recalibrated reality

the comfortable uncomfortable
but immune – really –
to crisis?

–

how do you inoculate
a sick society

tell the boss to care
for his worker

the landlord to relieve
his tenant

the politician to protect
her people?

how do you jolt
men awake,

illumine the stepping
stones so precariously
placed?

–

what does it mean to
be without

insurance, yes
savings, yes
without the privilege
of cozy quarantine,
true

but isn’t it without as in
without the gates – as in
outside – as in without
the demarcations of
worthiness

isn’t it who we swallow
and who we cough up
and spit out?

–

what do borders look like
drawn around each other –
around ourselves

aren’t we only as good as
what’s inside our circle –
as the company
we’ve chosen to keep

and isn’t it keep as in
provide for the sustenance of –
as in guard and protect – as in
honor and fulfill – as in
keep the Sabbath?

–

what does this silence
conjure for us

what awakenings lie in wait

what meaning can we glean
from this indefinite and holy
Saturday?

Summer Awad is a poet and playwright from Knoxville, Tennessee. Summer’s poetry has appeared in Little Rose Magazine and Exposition Review. Her play, WALLS: A Play for Palestine, was produced at the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival. Summer is an award-winning, local spoken-word poet. Her work focuses on her Appalachian and Palestinian heritages, as well as feminism and politics.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.