Pandemic Poems - APRIL 2020
Linda Lenhoff
lenhoff@informativity.com
Bio Note: I live in one of the six San Francisco Bay Area counties that were the first to shelter in place in the country, for which I’m incredibly grateful. I reflect upon my love/hate relationship with California in my new novel, *Your Actual Life May Vary, soon be published by SFWP or another indie press, depending on who survives. Right now, I’m working full-time from home as an editor, which really interferes with the hours I’d like to spend in total panic.

Bad Dreams Have Failed Me

I’m the worst-case scenario type
I easily imagine shrieking people on fire, body
parts falling off, screams of terror—
even on a good day.
Now I whisper to anyone who’ll listen:
Global pandemic. Global pandemic.
Because even I have never thought of this.
Though I always have spare face masks,
cans of sustainable pink salmon, boxes of low-sodium veggie soup,
enough Clorox spray for two counties and an unincorporated area,
and five bottles of Purel in my purse at all times.
I’d have made some Boy Scout.
But I’m also at a total loss.
All my nightmares of driving off the overhead freeway ramp, 
being beaten bloody by students, accidentally swallowing a chirping finch,
all the nightly terrifying molestations and stranglings—
they all fail me; except for the
one where they come after me for my face mask.
My long-stored hidden treasure, my N-95.
That one still leaves me gasping.
©2020 Linda Lenhoff
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Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell her or him. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL