since i don’t have a bunch of poet friends who dare be honest nowadays and give constructive advice in fear of hurting my delicate feelings, i am putting this draft here.  i fear i haven’t worked out the comments thing yet, but i’m getting there.  so write me if you have something to say about this:  

Paralysis

A draft for Alicia

There’s so much  I don’t want to remember,

so much I don’t want to see,

but imprisoned at home it comes to me

how paralyzed we all have been made

and how much we need to free ourselves

not just from the lockdown of our home,

but also the passivity imposed on us

not only by terror of the plague

not only by the empty shops,

the faceless people on the street,

the lies piled so high they have spilled

into every part of our lives.

When my father had his first stroke,

he had to teach half his body

how to move.  I saw how much work

went into a single finger, then a hand,

until one day he was walking again.

The second time it didn’t work.

Getting a single word out

was too hard a task.

But I am his child

and my mother’s too.

And she moved for him,

refusing to let him relent.

I want to invoke her now

her stubborn blind will

that ignored the chill of reality

and forced movement forward.