Pandemic Gratitudes

Melissa Eleftherion

Good air quality today	A house and a job	Simplified hysteria	
Kitten antics				No fights today		
Enough money to pay the bills 

Warm bed		
Glad I’m not a tool bureaucrat

Family blue sky 	No pressure to leave the house 
Some quiet			Witches

Healthy now 		Have job		New faucet
Imaginal cells	Laughs with family

Singing with Phoenix			Hildy in the bag
I got the taxes done		Wrote a stanza 		

Good day at work		
I’m healing

Phoenix got some sleep	Trudy gave us handmade masks		
Danced with P to Hamilton	Protective nervous systems	
	No housework		

Making warm milk for bedtime	Slept in	Phoenix saying breathe with me
Diagnostic relief	Hit my step goal	Hugs & a power walk

Calm down plan		Wild sky
A handwritten letter from Anthony	Kevin put up the new patio lights

Making french toast		Wrote a poem today		Attempts at letting go

Day off	
Melatonin

Hildy sleeping under my dresses

Had 15 minutes alone 	Kevin killed a black widow
Five minutes of wilderness 	Disbanded Minneapolis Police Dept.
15 years together		Bee-sting

#NoFilterWorkTalk			Family Protest Sign Making

Today we marched		Dog belly		Drinking tea in the yard
My back stopped hurting	Permission to put up the trampoline
Hike by the river	Vietnamese takeout

Baldwin	Sunset over the mountain

	Audre Lorde

Grateful that Grandma died peacefully
Grateful we’re not reopening the library yet

Crickets and cats	My mom	Learning to play the ukulele

Taking a knee with Phoenix 	BLM
Gratitude for the protestors in Portland
Hope and gratitude for fungi & mycelia 

Vanilla milkshakes	Soft-boiled eggs	Memories of my grandmother

Basic needs met	
Can walk in my neighborhood without being perceived as a threat

Grace, wisdom, and grit	Stand up comedy
Video chat with friends in New York	Braiding Sweetgrass

Cicadas that triggered me	Unemployment check	Family time and nachos

Lichens 	Mutualistic symbiosis	3-day weekend ahead
Making breakfast	Kevin dying my hair
Morning hike with Phoenix	Perseverance		Redwoods

We are safe at home tonight as fires ravage around us
Rose gelato

Poltergeist the musical	Survived the winding drive
No headache today	Air quality improving

End of the world birthday paleta
Being ok with failure
Everything is in everything

August 29, 2020

Melissa Eleftherion (she/they) is a writer, a librarian, and a visual artist. She is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), & numerous chapbooks, including little ditch (above/ground press, 2018) & trauma suture (above/ground press, 2020). Born & raised in Brooklyn, Melissa created, developed, and co-curates The SFSU Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange with Elise Ficarra. She now lives in Northern California where she manages the Ukiah Library, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.