Joshua Keiter

Before this year where the days are
Apparently indistinguishable
One from each other

I never expected to wake up one
Morning and recall every
Second we spent

Together the day we shared with
Family and friends the love
That surely caused

The universe to materialize
By reciting a few words
Gazing into our eyes

It is not the solitude of believing
We two are the only beings
In the known world

But that finally we now participate
In the act of creation which
Inherent is every second

Of relationship with each other
For the sake of the world
That is love

The part in the video meeting
Where everyone has already
Said goodbye and no one

Has signed off perhaps
There is one in the group
Trying to catch another

Before they both leave
Which leads everyone to stay
A moment or two longer

To be sure they are not the ones
The speaker means to address
Even though that is improbable

More likely they just wish
In this time things did not end
So abruptly at once a sort of room

Full of faces and then a blank
Screen or whatever there was
Before the meeting began

As if to remind you it was always
All pixels all the way down
That this brief interlude

In the course of an abnormal day
Signified the possibility that
Some things remain true

A conversation that is still audible
Even when those it does not
Concern are only listening in because

There are so many things we cannot
Say with everyone still signed on
Try as we may to avoid the silence

The mute button cannot hide the tears

 For all we know it will work out in the end
 For all we know the risks are calculable 
 For all we know Dolly Parton was always going to save us
 For all we know a pod and/or bubble meant different things earlier in the century 
 For all we know facts are non-negotiable only to one side of the story 
 For all we know disinformation does not hold up in court 
 For all we know I can’t remember where I saw it
 For all we know it was just here a moment ago 
 For all we know why did I walk into this room 
 For all we know endings are a means to an end
 For all we know there has never been a smooth transition to autocracy 
 For all we know media got us into this mess 
 For all we know just how self-satisfied that think piece sounded 
 For all we know we know sharing this article won’t help 
 For all we know no need to comment “done” in the comments 
 For all we know no one goes there anymore it’s too crowded 
 For all we know common sense will see us through 
 For all we know the other side never believed in the commons 
 For all we know oppression is still the order of the day
 For all we know the billionaires get richer on minimum wage 
 For all we know nothing has changed 
 For all we know everything has changed 

I find it increasingly difficult to believe
That some among us are inconvenienced
By the thought of postponing a holiday
In which they are begrudging participants

At the best of times which is to say
It has been more than half a year since
I resigned myself that nothing will go
As planned for the remainder of this ongoing

International pervasive and temporary emergency
The requirements of which just happen to suit
My latent agoraphobic and antisocial tendencies
That normally articulate as “I can’t I have rehearsal”

Even when I have not even auditioned for something
But the principle of the thing still stands—
Nothing is as important as looking after the ones
You would sacrifice everything on earth to love

Even if it means not seeing them one more day

It seems telling that I cannot remember
The last time I weeded the shelves at the library

But today I went through the list identifying
Which titles were no longer useful if they ever were

Even the more recent publications betray
A distinct lack of activity from their spines

Barely cracked the pages evidently yellowed only
At the top because they have hardly lain flat

As it turns out I went through the management section
All the bits and bobs of advice never heeded

Of how to grow your career and win the future
Or win your career and grow the future—innovatively

One could tell their usefulness had passed
In the sheer vapidity of their typefaces and covers

And empty headed guarantees of easy fixes
If not explicit hucksterism just to sell books

That not only no one else bought they never even read
Nevertheless they filled up the cart quite neatly

As I brought them to the back room to be discarded
And in all likelihood recycled in the regular bins

Where all the thoughts we thought were valid
In their inevitable horribleness are destined to go

Thankfully the spaces these sorry books took up
Have already been reclaimed by their absence

The emptiness that only jostles the shelf back together
Oddly enough gives us all the room we need to think

Somehow when the numbers
Keep accumulating
As if they never have an end

We maintain correlation
To our present predicament
With a military conflict

So far removed from our present
The shorthand acronym stands for
How it was never known at the time

When it was occurring it was singular
As if never before and never again
Would we see its like in our time

Or for that matter by an order
Of magnitude within a few decades
Be outstretched by another numeral

It seems safe to say the peaks
We had hoped to avoid when we first
Locked everything down have just

Flat out unflattened our trajectory
And now we are where we are
Which is at least double the losses that

Unprecedented they called Great

We are running out of time
For destruction to serve
As the order of the day

Soon there will be no one left
Dead set on distracting
From the man behind the curtain

Pulling strings and pushing
Toy buttons to display the fearsome
Image of pancaked power

Rearranging deck chairs on a boat
That was never intended
To float or even steadily sink

The adults are in the next room
Waiting for the tantrum to cease
Having given up hope of self-soothing

The truth will out as a matter of course
Let those with ears to hear listen
Everyone else chose sheer cowardice

Sometimes the silent voices
You never hear except
By means of their effects

Overwhelm the system
Which is trained upon
Keeping others silence

The irrational fear
That alone one is helpless
Irrevocably contradicted

By the preponderance
Of likeminded individuals
Acting in community

To not take any more bullshit
Leaves the weak bully
To sputter hackneyed invectives

Knowing his tininess
Suddenly broadcast far and wide
Will lead to his diminution

Turns out he’s outnumbered
Soon to be overwhelmed
By the rising tide of discontents

Arriving from the four corners
Ready to bar the door
That keeps insecurity at home

These voices make space
To break free

Courage, dear heart

Though the storm may arrive
Out of a disarmingly placid afternoon

Though the clouds may harbinger
Stirrings in the outer darkness

Though the still sad voice on
The other end of the line goes quiet

Though the helplessness you feel
Leads screaming into the full void

Though the year is heavy with tears
Unlikely to be shed in this lifetime

Though the miscommunication we inherit
Takes us further out of ourselves

Though the clouds of witnesses
Gather to disperse the inner darkness

Courage, dear heart

Though the broken wind is set loose
Stay on hold as we are being held

Brighten the corner
Where you are

Joy is also an act
Of resistance

We share the paths
Going each direction

Friends now passed
Recalled every second

Times we have spent
Never really gone

Memory is a kind of
Renewal imprinted on

The universe and us
Who gives our life

To take away
The emptiness before us

As in a corner suddenly
Flooded with light