Hands are raw from cheap soap
and scrubbing. We’re jobless now
so here’s the sink full of
better times we’re rinsing.
Let’s rearrange the living
room, drag the couch
from the side wall
to the back wall,
place the coat rack
in a different dusty corner,
treat the TV like
the god it wants to be.
There will be many
forms of worship,
this distancing.
Books. Cooking.
Writing. Pining.
Finally, I have time
to make music
and poetry but
I can’t put my phone
down– notifications
for each cog of society
as it breaks down.
You ask
should we hang
art on the walls?
I ask, what art?
(originally published in American Writers’ Review, Summer 2020)