Forgetting the Plague Year
I’m booking flights now, for summer journeys,
Patronizing hotels, and restaurants.
Going bare-faced in the grocery store.
Taking vaccinated parents, in their eighties,
To wave outdoors at their older siblings,
Who won’t get their shots as they ought to do.
It’s almost as if I have forgotten
How scared I was last year, of getting sick,
Racking up huge medical bills, dying,
Or being unable to recover.
Of my traveling days being over.
Of catching my death from the U.S. mail.
But here are ways I’ve changed for good:
I’ll never shake a stranger’s hand again.
Eat cake with candles someone has blown out.
Let my pantry shelves grow bare, leave my house
Without a supply of disinfectants,
Or fail to bolt if someone stands too close.