Anniversary

Topless in my room I’mlistening to a song a fourteen-year-oldplayed off their phoneyesterday - one yearsince my country shut down. I’m almost twenty-four. I will bein nine days. Twenty-two was a goldenyear and now I’ve seen more thanI imagine my grandmother has in herseven decades. Sometimes on Saturdays I beat my chest, open-handed,bouncing to the …

The COVID Question

I am in a predicament. It is entirely out of my control. Too many people in the past year or so have found themselves in the same place. My friend has been hospitalized with COVID-19. She and two other members of her household have been hospitalized. Three generations of family in three separate rooms. My …