March 14, 2023

vigilance

All day, watching the radar on a map I only consult when bad weather hits. An alert
on my phone tells me the power is out where I live. The snow seems to be blowing
sideways one minute, then like a snowglobe the next. How the inside of a grocery store
can feel like an oasis, or a crowded but station. One winter, all the bacon disappeared 
from the shelves in a single afternoon, but no one had touched the garbanzo beans. 
Three years ago, we were sewing cloth masks, brewing homemade hand sanitizer. 
Maybe we’ll always be on the lookout for something, but right now I want this window 
to be simply an aperture, and the aisles of Star Market, a terrarium, and the snow, 
a clap on the back from the clouds, whom we have too long been suspicious. Once, 
we drew them in cotton-ball shapes, floating nests of them above every world we made.