Six Feet Is All We Need

By Robert Knox  

Generally speaking, I’m pretty good
at keeping my distance
In fact, for days on end I’m practically
sheltering in place,
possibly even self-quarantining,
though I’m not sure where one of these nonce phrases
leaves off, and the other begins.

I did, however, break solitude to
stroll with my bestie
to the post office, where she may well have
violated her parole,
by engaging with a postal clerk
over required postage for an early draft
of our tax returns,
seeing that our customary live inquisition
was deferred
for all the appropriate public health protocols

And then, totally on my moral dime
for which I assume complete civic responsibility
we stopped at the nearly closed coffee shop,
all its tables lying sidewise against the wall,
where, in all probability,
I most infringed upon the magic circle,
pointing a blue surgically-gloved finger
at the blueberry scone
for which I felt a pounding need

transgressing that six-foot safety zone,
as if, after all these years,
once more
leaving room for the Holy Ghost
on the dance floor whose like I fear
never to know again.
to fox-trot with the pastry of my choice,
having discovered
by the bane, and boon, of enforced separation
from my fellow creatures,
that all we need in life is six feet
of safe and clean and healthy air

and at its end, those six feet under.

Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, and Boston Globe correspondent. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal, Verse-Virtual, his poems appear regularly on that site. They have also appeared in journals such as The American Journal of Poetry, South Florida Poetry Journal, New Verse News, Unlikely Stories, and others. His poetry chapbook Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty, published in 2017, was nominated for a Massachusetts Best Book award. He was recently named the winner of the 2019 Anita McAndrews Poetry Award.

Photo by Scott Nothwehr on Unsplash.