Photo Image: Dennis M. Kirschbaum
We’ve all seen this movie before
or read the novel someone left at the beach house.
The sage doctor months from retirement
warnings unheeded
the inept government official
preening for the camera
scam artists peddling fake cures
and, of course, the brave scientist
experimenting on herself to save us all.
Later, the post-apocalypse sequel –
the ransacked convenience stores
and deserted museums, green exploding
from every crevice.
No airplanes, or cars except the one
our hardened hero drives across
the crumbling metropolis,
his gentle dog riding shotgun.
Just the odd domestic creature gone feral
or zombie to keep things interesting.
It’s not so hard to imagine the world without us.
In our version, we’ve grown softer.
The newsfeed of tens of thousands dead
or gasping through a tube is interlaced
with the shuffle of the line outside the grocery,
the temple-like silence at the liquor store,
our gazes directed downward at the contamination
in our hands, oblivious to the new life
pushing though the pavement cracks.
And we’ve grown polite, even kind,
chatting with the neighbor more this week
than the last twenty years, supporting her puzzle swap.
More expressive too, learning to smile with only eyes.
What if this was our situation all along?
The mean jobs of living –foraging and fighting,
but also caring, sometimes kindness,
and the puzzles that keep arriving on the lawn
one after another, day after day
until we’ve solved them all.