How This Month Has Gone by Robert Knox

Our friends are not going to Florida,

but we are.

They have pre-existing conditions.

We have existing conditions of longingly anticipating

the gratification of warm water

and exotic bird life

(not to mention my exotic cousin).

Days pass.

Just a few, really.

They close the schools.

The gym. The library.

They close Handel & Haydn,

but keep the money to pay the musicians,

exalted members of the gig economy.

We're not going to Florida.

We're not going to visit the kids,

or her Dad in the nursing home.

We walk in the state park,

maintaining our invisible six-feet donuts

when passersby approach.

They close the jobs.

 A large man in a t-shirt builds scores

of stone figures on our rocky beach

which we approach, in wonder,

and some trepidation

lest they prove to be prophetic,

and become our only friends.

Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, and Boston Globe correspondent. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal, Verse-Virtual, his poems appear regularly on that site. They have also appeared in journals such as The American Journal of Poetry, New Verse News, Unlikely Stories, and others. His poetry chapbook "Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty" was nominated for a Massachusetts Best Book award. He was named the winner of the 2019 Anita McAndrews Poetry Award.