January 2021
Author's Note: I wrote "Pandemic!" way back in March 2020, while we were entering the first wave
here in Italy but in the US it still looked much like a blockbuster Hollywood movie. I hope the playful tone
may be understood in those terms. I thought it might be instructive to look back at some very early "first impressions"
of the pandemic, given the current situation. "Promise" was written after months of lockdown, and is addressed to
our daughter. With at least three vaccines on the horizon in 2021, I hope it doesn't seem hubristic to plant a
small seed of hope. I am the author of the collections Unburial (Kelsay, 2019) and Still Life with City
(forthcoming from Pski's Porch.)
Pandemic!
We’ve seen this movie dozens of times before.
It’s always based on a bestselling potboiler
starring Jeff Goldblum and Angelina Jolie
(‘90s version.) What starts with a cough ends
with the end of the world, a smoke-ridden landscape,
nations braced for mutual destruction.
[Intermission. Popcorn. Bathroom break.
Stretch your legs.] Megacities topple
like Lego blocks. Kaboom! Pow! Blammo!
Two ordinary schmoes like you and me
(only more beautiful, muscular, ripped)
take up the burden of humanity, vowing
to rescue it ‒ with seconds left on the clock ‒
from some great unforeseen catastrophe.
Much heavy weaponry and black trench coats.
(Armani logo.) The President of the United States
turns out to be a wolf in Uncle Sam’s clothing.
The climax comes ‒ and here you’re thankful for Dolby
Surround Sound ‒ with an apocalyptic face-off
in New York City, as distressed Lady Liberty
martyred by helicopter fire, takes blows
unflinchingly, lifts high her lighted lamp
proclaiming her clarion call to freedom
just at the moment that dog the President ‒
unmasked, betrayed by his own henchmen ‒
hangs from her crown above a pool of doom.
[Guitar. Fade to black. Roll credits.] Before you leave
the darkness, check for the name of that actor
who’s always in this film ‒ that guy! ‒ and brush
the salt from your thighs. Think how hungry
a good movie can make you, then praise your god
this only ever happens in Hollywood.
Promise
for Melissa
When all this is over
I promise we’ll see
flowers again, birds
in the trees, promise
the world will still be all
it was on the day
we left it.
©2021 Marc Alan Di Martino
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