My quarantine stretches on, no date
in sight for its end, Covid cases not
in decline, but rising daily. I keep doors
and windows closed and locked, latch
the screen door to my porch. 

On Sundays, Mr. Nuckols comes down
my driveway, brakes squealing, with hay
for his Angus cattle on the next property,
sees my vegetable patch has turned
into a weedy rectangle between

poles that once delineated spinach,
lettuce, Swiss chard, strawberries. He
parks his truck and trailer in the roadway
to leave me a bounty in reused plastic
grocery bags: Roma tomatoes,

white and sweet potatoes, yellow
squash and zucchini he knows
I’ll consume for this year’s vat
of minestrone. Two eggplants for layered
parmigiana with shredded pork,

yellow and green sweet peppers on pizza
made from dough I knead by hand. Here’s
one small watermelon because he knows
I live alone. Looking online for images both
colorful and uplifting, I search for info

on autumn harvests around the world.
Tell me it’s not true that China’s doctors
transplant organs for the rich
by harvesting poor living humans
who lost their family farms.

Five months inside a house with books
in each room, including bathrooms,
music on cassettes, vinyl, and CD.
One room dedicated to art and sewing,
fabrics and notions, paints and papers
sorted in see-through plastic bins. A pantry
with baking pans in every shape and size.

I want a divorce from plastic, from
virtual classes on Zoom, from iPad
and laptop screens. I want something
real—twigs with curly lichens, wooden
bowls filled with leaf litter, flower petals,
and yellow tulip poplar’s first leaves
in spring and first to fall in August.

Give me end-of-summer vegetables piled
on my counter: tomatoes, yellow squash,
and oversized zucchini ready for layering
with three cheeses. Give me eggplant
for a savory Parmigiana, sweet potatoes,
the crash and rumble of afternoon storms,
the sweet anticipation of firelight

through the wood stove’s door. My hands
cry for the tactile and tangible, bread
dough shaped and braided like clay
in a silent room without a radio, the scent
of baking bread and muffins served
with whipped butter, softened in humid
air. Enough talk of viruses and masks, voting,

drilling, fracking. You can keep your joy
over manufacturing. We know what to do,
how to care for each other and ourselves, how
to stay home, close to the earth. Let me return
to the analog world of books made of paper,
ink, and glue. Let me find hope among the fungi

popped overnight from the mossy ground—
fragrant and colorful in crimson and orange,
inviting trolls to abandon the Internet.