Headline from National Public Radio // 3 March 2020
Buckshot with red spots, our world limps
into autumn. If I look at the map on the TV
close enough I can see America. When I press
my nose to the screen I can see Illinois. Press harder
and there is Chicago. And look, in this pixel,
my apartment and whatever is left of me staring
at a map of a world whose name I once knew. Trees
flutter in the wind and cars crash into them the same
way they used to. Red spots punctuate the stretched
skin between my fingers and inch around the backs
of my hands, up my forearms. After I totaled my car
into an oak tree, I called my sister, begged her
for providence. I shouldn’t be alone. I can’t stop prodding
the news anchor. My TV screen is cracking. Red spots
punctuate the backs of my knees, my withering
thighs. Red spots punctuate the days. I see you
there through this window of a page. I am
in your home. I am in your head. I am everywhere,
all the time, all at once. My sister
won’t find me for weeks. When she comes
to check on me and must break down
the door she will see the spotted
pattern of this new world, her eyes
wide as a breaking headline.