Loss
We waited for terror trains
to gather up the aged,
the disabled, the black and brown,
the sexual deviants.
California wildfires licked the land dry.
Skies turning dark orange.
People were shot by
other people in the streets
they hated.
Policemen hurled tear gas and beat
protestors with batons. Anger and
cruelty reigned.
Cell phones saw it all, satellites beaming
non-stop visions: apocalyptic collapse.
Body bags and mail piled up.
Money ran out. Evictions began.
It could never happen
here, right?
My country felt foreign,
two Americas,
cancerous.
A place I read about, dystopian
theft. Life, limb, dignity– stolen.
I had stayed inside to hide
from the virus.
In one small county in Alabama,
people lived life as usual.
Uncle told me they didn’t wear masks.
We could boast of being a good host,
welcoming and spreading disease.
We heard a miracle will happen
from a man who spread misery and death. He
was protecting the
stock market against decline,
while golfing
It’s a hoax.
Photos showed people
watching
from windows,
the world passing by.
You were so far away.
We cascaded words day
after day,
fountains of love and affection, fear
and anxiety flowing down
an Internet chat wall.
I waited in silence for the delivery
man to drop off supplies.
In ugliness, I sought evidence of beauty.
Pastels, beautiful colors,
rolling onto the emptiness of
white space. I wept
blending them–radiant pigments,
a gorgeous burning nightmare.
Moira J. Saucer is a disabled poet who grew up in Hampton Roads, Virginia and now lives in the Alabama Wiregrass. “Loss” is a selection from Pandemic Party, a poem cycle in progress. Moira’s full length debut collection will be published in 2020-2021 by Ice Floe Press. She holds an MFA from the University of Arkansas Creative Writing Program and an MA from the University of Delaware. Her work has been published most recently by Failure Baler, Burning House Press, Visual Verse, Mookychick, and Fly on the Wall Press’ “The Weird and Wonderful” magazine.” She can be found on Twitter at @MJSEyesOpened.
Banner and drawings: Title: Pandemic Nightmare, soft pastel on paper 9″ x 12″ & 5 digitally-altered variants, all created by by Moira J Saucer.
Page Design & Poem Edits: Robert Frede Kenter.
IceFloe Press 