eleven months

just one day is all I ask, to flit and flutter, free
from the everyday
tasks that have cluttered the past
eleven months

of masks and Have you washed your hands? and
temperature checks. You’re good to go – have fun.

everything is strange in the New Normal

and we march across the pool deck
goggles and suits in white laundry baskets
six feet apart and a splash of laughter echoes in the
cool space between fake palms,
half past nine flashes red and a disembodied voice break-
ing
up
whines Fifteen minutes left

in this holiday illusion we are slowly sinking
tricks of chutes and ladders only

one
way
down.

better to be frozen, hit with a dose of real

embrace the feeling of cracked lips, eyes water with
windchill -10. A weather warning? No, a call to slip
out, skate on flats iced-over, jump again in
pristine banks as if we were eight years old, not afraid
to fall, play, lose track of time for the right reasons
a season of
sore and
happy limbs.

just one day in the snow, to flit and flutter, free
as a million flakes
that we waited for the past
eleven months