October 2020
Bio Note: Ever since this singularly dark year began, I’ve been finding unexpected solace in re-reading the poets
I’ve always loved, and discovering many others (thanks in part to Verse-Virtual!) whose work is completely new to me. It’s been
stimulating enough to get me back to some unfinished poems of my own, while distracting me from the events of this distressing
moment in time. I think I’m feeling better already.
Herd Immunity: a Manifesto
Why won’t the virus hit on us? Because we are invincible! So let’s go out and yuck it up on principle! It’s time for making out again without a stupid mask— And as for “social distancing”? Don’t even ask. We’re under forty-one years old which means we’re all immune (or nearly), so let’s hit the beach this afternoon! Tonight, the bars and restaurants will ooze with babes and nerds all set to rock and roll again— just mark my words. And should we cough or sniff or sneeze or smooch (hey, don‘t we wish?) we’ll only be replenishing the petri dish— so come on in and party hard with all your sozzled friends! Indulge your immortality (—until it ends).
Originally published in Light, Poems of the Week - July 27, 2020
Rondeau: Old Woman With Cat
Osteoporosis (one of life’s indignities) is such a splendid name for the disease— all those little o’s, holes in the bone where the rain gets in, rendering a crone like me defective, porous as Swiss cheese. I”m riddled at the hips and knees round-sided as parentheses since my shrunken skin has known osteoporosis— and my extremities Have shriveled into lacy filagrees, breakable as glass on stone. Naked at the window ledge I drone to my sleek, supple Siamese: osteoporosis.
Originally published in Valparaiso Review, Spring/Summer 2001
©2020 Marilyn Taylor
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the
author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual.
It is very important. -FF