Quarantine Inventory, March 28, 2020
Brian Malone
They have ceased
construction on the
three-story apartment
complex I can see through
the barren trees. A crane towers
over the scaffolding, its little hook
weighted by a ball swaying like a haywire
metronome. There is a flag
atop the crane, American. The crane lights
up at night to alert low-flying planes
arriving or departing the airport ten minutes away.
There are fewer planes these days.
Everything looks tired
now, the soil damp. Last
year’s withered grasses
in the overgrown rented garden
path have not realized
the snow is gone. They are
weighed down but nothing weighs them down.
Filtered in gray light, the landscape
sighs for days but forgets to inhale.
There is the slow, irregular
circling of the crane’s hook.
There is my expiring
debit card, my rent
due,
a new lease signed,
dishes, disheveled
hair, birds
somewhere.
There is crystal,
ink, smooth
stone, lakewater,
prismatic
light refractions,
glistening,
orgasm somewhere.
There is this silent
phone, this lingering
cough, this final
roll of toilet paper, still-clean
clothes.
I will not die my grandmother
will not die my students
will not die my at-risk mother
will not die the family
I lived
with in Spain will not
die I will not
die nobody
will die. Someone
inhale somewhere.
