Life Support in a Viral Age

by Frank De Canio / April 19th, 2020

It isn’t easy to live anymore.
This cancer’s grown so that it’s hard to walk
unwisely. Mom and Pop’s grocery store
serves as limit of my travels. I talk
to walls because my peers are ill at ease.
I’m quartered now, restricted to a chair,
since made aware that crucial arteries
have been occluded or in disrepair.
I scarcely see life in the district where
I live, and hear still less its throbbing beat,
who once heard children laughing without care
in games they played. My heart’s a lonely street
where I mark time. And daylight’s hazed with dread,
while I keep watch at pastimes that are dead.

Born and bred in New Jersey, Frank worked in New York for many years. He loves music from Bach to Amy Winehouse, World Music, Latin, opera. Shakespeare is his consolation, writing his hobby. Frank likes poets Dylan Thomas, Keats, Wallace Stevens, Frost, Ginsberg, and Sylvia Plath. Read other articles by Frank.

This article was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2020 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.