I never thought I’d pray to see tanks roll in.
That I’d scream for leaders to close the borders.
Maybe martial law’s just the thing – a thought
I’d have bet so hard against having, even yesterday,
I’d have put money down on dying first.
It’s just that there will always be
young bronzed men laughing off doctors
at the beach. There will always be friends
walking too close. There will always be me,
having to throw my phone in the sink
to keep from having a stranger from the Internet
come over and love me.
We just don’t quit.
They’ll surveil us under the skin soon.
Arrest us for jogging with a temperature.
Still, we’ll be improving our Spanish
and painting and knitting and playing
the banjo. From the knife’s edge
we’ll be getting ahead, even after it’s all stopped moving,
and the only place to gather are hospitals.
We’re holy like this.
We fail at nothing
except doing just that.
In the park the other day, a chipper young man
said it’d be all over soon.
He wasn’t talking about the world.