
THE GUITAR MAN IN QUARANTINE
by John Grey
I’m wary of doorknobs and the breath of others but this wood I’d trust with my life. I’m nervous putting my hands most places but not on this fretboard, these taut strings. Outdoors, these days, I’ve been social distanced into loneliness. Inside, however, the round body of my Ovation sits on my lap like an old girlfriend. But with one strum of a chord, one gentle pick and pluck of a melody, one hum from tuning peg to bridge to sounding board, it’s the woman I married. I can sit here, go through my repertoire from love songs to humorous ditties to protests against wars long since ended. I do my own stuff, and even ballads written in depressing times, are a comfort. Or I dip into myriad cover versions, and it’s like their composers, living or dead, are in the room with me. I feel, so deeply, the absence of others, but solitude and sanity are not irreconcilable. I have my guitar. I know how to play it. Even if I’m the only one listening, my life can still be heard from.

DAILY RITUAL
by John Grey
Room is quarantined by darkness, by Covid-19. I open my eyes to the first lemon squeeze of sun. Today is yesterday and the day before. And the day before that. Beyond the window, where once were possibilities, people stand six feet apart. The day has begun. And there's nothing I can do with it.

RESORT TOWN
by John Grey
RESORT TOWN The trees, are stripped down to the bones. Sure I know it's April but it never used to be. And the seaside town is shuttered. But since when did "out of season" mean "out of luck." I walk the streets unaware of the cold or, at least, certain there's no escaping it anyhow. There are no restaurants open, no home for locals to gather and drink, and make enough noise for a summer full of tourists. For the locals are afraid of other locals these days, terrified of catching what they haven't even got. People still long for summer. But not the one coming, the one past.
Sent to us in Feb. 2021
Categories: Poetry, Poetry, shelter-in-place, The Second Wave, The Surge