Before Zooming With My Family (April 12)

One finds that time opens up
like a flower in a kaleidoscope
but you must test it, ask it.

Perhaps you must spend large quantities
of time alone in a quiet house.
You must have a house
and quiet, in other words.

Please wait for the host to start this meeting.
(Ten minutes.)

Bernadette Mayer wrote a long poem
called Midwinter Day while doing
daily things like making dinner,
caring for children, and dreaming.

How did she do it?
Practice.
Immediacy and spontaneity are fictions
women know.

(Five minutes.) 

Nana can't hear me on the phone
so I let her talk.
I try to ask her what it's like
being confined to her room.

She doesn't hear me.
I try again.
She hears something like: "Those women
you used to eat with..."

"I can't see them," she says.
I don’t hear
any sadness in her voice.
"I like my room."

(Two minutes.)

She's passing time with dreams
of the July baby. "I wonder
what she will look like?
She could look like Charlie,
or Charlie's sister, or Meghan…"

I could say: "Or me.
She could look like me"
but she probably wouldn't
hear me.

"Kaleidoscope" by acmargeson ( CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )