Rachel Hadas: Ides of March MMXX
New York, March 2020
Nothing new,
but it feels like an end.
An end that’s new.
This end is now?
No, I said new.
But who
could hear me through my mask?
Don’t ask.
Love
wears a glove.
I want to touch my friend.
.
This fear feels new.
We’ve all forgotten how
to live with it, to live it
day by day. And each
day begins anew,
begins a new
now we do not know,
oh no,
do not yet know.
From Pandemic Almanac (Ragged Sky, 2022). Copyright Rachel Hadas 2022. Included in Vox Populi with permission.
Rachel Hadas is the author of many books of poetry, prose, and translations. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant in poetry, and an award in literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Vox Populi 
I feel it, too. Want to get out but curled too tightly in my shell.
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Yep. I’ve forgotten how to be around people. Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info
Author of Nightjar Author of American Ash Founder of Autumn House Press Editor of Vox Populi
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