Another poem from the IG reading …
This one came about because our friend Ulrica messaged me about sending Scott a care package from Sweden, and she said, “The world as we know it is gone. Some of us understand that already, others need more time for it to sink in … So let’s just spread as much joy as we can. And allow people to mourn what has been.”
Instructions for Quarantine
(Ulrica’s Poem)
We must sit with our grief
on the living room floor,
knees touching
(she is grief not pestilence)
She will be familiar,
delicate and raw;
this is not the first time you have met
(this is not the last)
We have done this before,
mourned a world lost,
the luxury of expectation
(the solidity of chairs)
I shall take her hands
and place in them
the bud of an orchid, a poem
(words will pour into the cupped hands of my grief)
Over and over
as the world dies again
as the world changes again, again
(as we mourn what has been, again and again and again)
copyright 2020 by Laura E. Price. Feel free to link to this poem, but please don’t reproduce it without permission.
Laura E. Price 