Quarantine Daybook #6
There is so much death in the middle of the day, in the middle of the
Spring light of Paris. There is so much death as I hold my head here
To the window like a flower. There is so much death in the middle of
Me feeling like a flower. When I move to the couch, deciding what my past
Is about, there is so much death. There is so much death that I get up and
Go again to the kitchen to lean my head against the window, like a flower,
Pushing my hips, like roots, hard into the cabinet. There is so much death
In the middle of my neighbor witnessing me there, not watering, watching.
There is death there, then, and, later, when my husband discovers an old
Beet in the salad bowl. And after class, while I wait for my students to posture
Like flowers in the bed of my chat room, there is so much death. In the middle
Of the daydream that online conversations nurture and touch, I feel my hands
Firming the keyboard like ground that could be stirred. There, too, is so much
Death. When I turn to my husband, asking, Why, why, why hasn’t it bloomed,
Pointing to this window or that, where our flowers wear our days and nights,
There is a dew of death. In the middle of him caressing the pots, those outside
And the pots of who we are, he questions, bloom? Yes, I say, before I put us in
The middle of me and answer, éclore. There is so much death, in the middle of
This day, in the middle of this spring light of Paris. There is so much death as I
Hold my head here to this window like this flower feeling like this flower.
Carrie Chappell is a writer, editor, and translator. Currently, she teaches at Cergy Paris Université and serves as Poetry Editor of Sundog Lit. Some of her recent poems are forthcoming or have appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, Juke Joint, Nashville Review, Redivider, SWIMM, and Yemassee. Her lyric and book essays have been published in DIAGRAM, Fanzine, The Iowa Review, The Rumpus, The Rupture, and Xavier Review.