
covid dreams
Hilary DePolo
Poetry
Covid does not let me sleep soundly!
covid dreams
my struggle with these virus
days seems almost easy
the spectral possibilities
rumble through my nights
​
images heavy-footed with
the unknown challenge
authority of sleep I wander
the other side eager to
​
weave words into images
images into stories stories
into lessons lessons into
comfort but I cannot cast on
​
even one stich words stand
alone shoulders hunched
dare me to make poetry from a
world-wide pastiche of horror
​
I dream
my sister sits regal in a mansion
fireplace blazing her ventilator
wheezes in time with a string
band she is too ill to dance
the boy of her 16th summer
now a magician can perform no
trick to save her he giggles
I SEE YOU as he evaporates
I dream
my second mother steps fully
clothed into the tub she drivels
the book of Job as she disrobes
cascades of sawdust wash over her
​
images evaporate in a smoky
dawn that I cannot wake to
stumble through haze for hours
plod the hours until I return
​
to the story board of our lives
when I do they have blended
into a river of souls its current
rushes to a new world order
should I continue the struggle
or accept that I witness final days
earth’s last shudder as it rids
itself of a fatal pestilence
​
is reborn
​
©hdpoet – ‘20