#LifeinQuarantine

an elegy

There is a silent enemy seeping sneaking into our borders our homes our bodies our lungs traveling at high speed, dividing us while it doubles triples, quadruples …multiplies… exposing our humanity or inhumanity: hoarders, villains heroes & martyrs alike.

Except for our call of duty isn’t combat it’s social distancing — a codeword for interruption

Palms and faces pressed up against windows donning drawings of rainbows while healthcare workers hand us life-preservers as we race to preserve life arming up against this virus that we can’t debug wiping countries clean and we crown those who have never been crowned until corona became a household name

Our call of duty is here: dividing us into isolation with reverberations settling into our foundation

Uprooting our past present and future staining our family portraits draining our finances

And when we walk out the front door: everyone is suspect — friends, family, neighbours — as it spreads like wildfire with too many hotspots to douse

We’re living inside a dystopia like Julia and Winston sharing a kiss and chocolate in solidarity and morse code:

1–2–3 #Covid19 4–5–6 #SocialDistancing 8–9–10 #FlatteningtheCurve

Now it’s here — not just over there not just near not just something you hear

We are chasing you trying to corner you to isolate the contagion but you're invisible some even think they are invincible

It’s as futile as swatting a fly but still we buy time as you suffocate some of us that is until your time runs out and we smother you and Rise (though right now it’s still all too much to surmise)

Because some world leaders are stalling like a bad rendition of Hamlet something is rotten in this global village and it’s not as simple as the plague of Thebes: there is no Oedipus to exile no Oracle or Blind Prophet or is there?

We struggle to awaken from drowning inside the pages of this dystopia but it’s like a broken vinyl on repeat skipping and scratching scratching and skipping while babies are born in quarantine and the dead die alone.

Will we ever dance in tune again?

Lindsay Soberano-Wilson is a mother, teacher, and poet. Her debut chapbook Casa de mi Corazón: A Travel Journal of Poetry & Memoir (Poetica Publishing) is coming soon. Find her on Medium, Instagram, or Twitter @Poetry Matters. Lindsay Soberano-Wilson © 2021. If you liked #LifeinQuarantine, then you will also like Alive to Thrive: