Pandemic Poems - APRIL 2020
Bio Note: I am a poet and songwriter living in Oakland, California with my wife and son.
I graduated with an M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, and have published
previously in the March 2019 and July 2019 issues of Verse-Virtual, as well as in Adelaide, Selcouth
Station, Ink in Thirds, The Pangolin Review, A New Ulster, and many other journals.
This Poem Has Teeth
I find my son’s bicuspid
on my dresser
beveled little stone
yellow and off white
dried blood on the jagged
underside
cairn of calcium
tilting
on the sandstone beach
of my palm
how did that tiny
flashing light
from 12 years ago
harden
into enameled rows
planted in red plots
of nutrient-rich
soil
how do any of us
move
from light
to matter
and back again
then I remember
there’s a killer virus
going around
and wash my hands.
The Counting
We spray our groceries with rubbing alcohol,
cross the street to skirt a cough or sneeze,
but mostly stay indoors and draw, read,
dig out musty board games, cook,
eat like we may never eat again,
and in the night we peer through reeds
of dreams and picture bodies burning
on a sacred pyre, smoke rising
like an offering to ancient gods
moving beads across an abacus in heaven.
©2020 Scott Waters
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