Divination

What happens when we reach 1000 days of the pandemic?

How long has it been since your last haircut?

Do you remember when I fell and first hurt my foot?

The days are like small cat pills held in the palm of your hand.

There used to be so much more hope and optimism.

Now, there is just enough,

most days.

Did you pay attention to how much that meal was?

I did not.

Sometimes hunger is a good substitute for love.

When I was a child we would go to the penny candy store

and buy everlasting gobstoppers that changed color as you

trained your mouth to fit.

Multicolored, candy flavored, drool.

It was enough to lure one across town on a yellow Schwinn

with a black vinyl banana seat.

With a few nickels, a dime,

you could buy a decent day’s worth of dreams.

Sharing was bad etiquette.

I have a small catalogue of ailments that resemble a gamers die.

A Korean game of yut nori,

where you throw the marked sticks in the air and cry out, Yut!

A bible whose pages blow freely in wind

until a monk places a finger down firmly on Psalm 18.

It is late in the season,

but still time for one more snow storm.

When my last child was born,

cars careened off the road as if they were parting for me.

The babysitter gripped the dash of the Subaru Legacy,

and the two children were strapped into booster seats in the back

kicked their feet in time with the music.

I just drove on through the ocean of snow.

Dean at Home: The Pandemic Blog