at being alone, loved 
solitude’s private refreshment.
Now, all of us             alone, together,  

slip into each other’s cocoons
on Zoom and Skype, FaceTime,
Facebook Live, our spaces  

no longer singular       and unseen,
compete for who is doing isolation best,
who’s most content, whose 

flowers bloom the most, who
takes the greatest photographs
of the most golden 

sourdough bread, whose dog
evokes the sharpest mix
of loyalty and pathos or cat 

epitomizes cat, who has built
the most ingenious outdoor space,
best backdrop from which to maintain  

our incessant unrelenting
connectedness, the genuine 

expression of human lack
of boundaries,  

this enforced separation
has laid bare