COVID-5

it’s not that you love me, it's how you love me
and a virus works the same way
inching closer, then, the mad scramble away

November 1994 | May 2020

COVID-4

A thought stops me.  What if you work out where I am?  What if you launch a boat and sail towards the island?  With this thought I start to dig.  Down into the soft dark soil, down like a rabbit, down like Wonderland

July 2012

COVID-3

to stop, and shut the whole thing down

April 2020

COVID-2

coordinates

I wish I had a map and instruments to measure the exact place the furthest distance from you.  I imagine a small desolate island.  Cold and barren.

July 2012

COVID-1

I miss people, indifferent to distance

April 2020

U-Boot (a love poem)

Amanda Surrey, 2014

Mass

1:  first the wind through the double doors

a valve pushed open a pulse in the air

down the red carpet's arterial design

the smell of perfume and crease of faces

an old woman's smile extinguishes all that preceded it

but kindness

2:  then the voices climbing reach a single note

late afternoon descends through the open windows

while ceiling fans sweep and rearrange His words

outside they fall swollen to the ground

you know the way the light is in here?

heavy and green

3:  I've missed you

and the company you keep

a place at your table

saved for me

Amanda Surrey, published in the Record, Winter 2010