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From ‘Poems in Plague Time’

‘He jokes that he will not die / he will grow smaller and smaller / until I can carry him around in a teacup’

by
Alicia Ostriker
April 03, 2023
Jon Tyson/Unsplash
Jon Tyson/Unsplash
Jon Tyson/Unsplash
Jon Tyson/Unsplash

Time

Time goes by
day trailing day
it passes me by
and somehow fades
like a stealthy black cat
like wily trout
diving to the bottom of a pond
like a recently cleaned
express subway car
lit up boldly inside there it goes
loudly clacking
gradually passing
the local subway car
covered with graffiti
in which I sit sighing
watching golden-windowed Time slide by
both trains move
one moves faster
wait up
no

Ritual in Plague Time

We no longer leave the apartment  ‎  ‎‎‎‎‎‎ we cook
or order in and eat amply together

I make a pleasing borscht     he a pleasing French
onion soup    together we dance

the long-married kitchen dance
he is slowly steadily losing weight

he jokes that he will not die
he will grow smaller and smaller

until I can carry him around in a teacup
exhibit him to my friends

and although the joke is old
we both ritually smile

Ritual II

As I daily wipe
each piece of mail
with Clorox
before opening
to protect myself from the virus
I wish I could wipe myself clean
of envy
of anger
symptoms of another lifelong
contagious illness

I ask what is it
infecting me year after year
traveling the airwaves
on pulsations of contempt
or suffering
or vengeance
how cleanse
how heal

Summer

Watch out for the angels
they despise you

there they go flying over you
heading for the coast

coughing garbage
into the atmosphere

above you

Elul

I am climbing a wet, slippery rock face
I have no gear
can’t see to the top or the bottom

Looking around I observe many
other climbers
clinging to the same wet rock

I was standing at the shallow end of a wading pool
splashing like a kindergartener and now
I enjoy watching my quiet pink feet
against the turquoise and white pebbly concrete surface
of the pool floor

how strange that old age
has brought me here

*

I greet the trees in the park
they return my greeting
courteously
I say to my husband
I am convinced the trees are sentient
he replies
I bet they make the same mistake about you

Alicia Ostriker is the author of Waiting for the Light and The Volcano and After: Selected and New Poems 2002-2019. She was the New York State Poet Laureate from 2018 to 2021.