Dramatic spike in Covid 19 cases, the highest they’ve been. The dreaded third wave has hit and hit hard. BC Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced restrictions for the next three weeks. Bar and restaurant owners are freaking out. No indoor dining. They’re struggling and so many businesses have succumbed. We’re all so weary. What to do except wait it out, cope and hope for the best, and for me, write. Some of my recent output concerns the pandemic but not all because though it feels interminable, this moment will pass. Knowing so might be a rare perk of getting older. A couple of years is nothing in the big scheme of things. So hold fast my pretties, the end of this particular dread is near.

2020 WAYS OF COPING

Wiggy weird times
clamorous as a bouquet of wildflowers.
Reports have become necessarily wacky,
democracy a debacle.

Pimp among men
plunked into this particular space and time
to the amusement of some,
the dismay of many.

Some may squeeze white icing
onto chocolate cookies,
bake,
because murder is wrong.

Some may hump, some may waltz
to the harpist on the front lawn,
dance,
because murder is wrong.

An armor-nosed afflicted
squelches his noisy couch
to sit and devour a lonely hotdog
as nearby lung assistant dutifully

spins a homespun door prize,
a personalized No Smoking sign.
He scans channels for virus news.
Genetic detective work

claims it’s jumped
from bat to human
to mink to human,
mutating along the way.

He bolts for a bladder relief visit,
returns to scribble,
write,
because murder is wrong.