QUARANTINE

I bought the largest bag of pom poms, remembering mopping

the floor each night after close, my dad waiting in the closed shop 

while I washed the dishes, we waited and went to   

Whataburger when I didn’t have a car after I broke off my first 

engagement, the details they say,

the yellow of the parakeet, These days my hands 

splotched in acrylic paint, crying for the frogs 

caught in the afternoon sun puddles, saying yes

to every hug they ask for 

~

QUARANTINE

most nights dreaming of your voice, take my life in your

hands, say a prayer to forget, how memory can be haunting, 

searching for golf balls in shallow pools with my dad, 

realizing his hands could mend, thinking how could 

this be for me, modern obsession with group work, synthesis,

occupy one shape, hearing Ocean Vuong 

evoking morning, how could we read poems about death, 

writing isn’t just about deaths 

but the dead, a little death every word, every 

uttering, every sound he told you you could never make 

~

QUARANTINE  

And it’s 2020, during the first wave, many people were found

shouting to no one in almost rain, And it’s 2016, Taipei shook itself, 

kitchen spoons, tabletops, sofa cushions being indented

without a body. The squirrel screeched as it was carried away 

by the black cat. And it’s 2001 again and again, there was not a

free moment, TV’s strapped to carts, my overripe eyes, 

replaying the same news clip over and over like a big bag of bird 

seed spilling across the floor, And it’s 2020, everyone could be 

heard through their masks, audible like pain, like watching a

series of waves, miraculous to have witnessed anything at all 

~

Alexandra Gilliam, who uses the handle @poetsforsound across platforms, is a new member of THE CACTI FUR POETRY COLLECTIVE, sound mixer, and photographer based in San Antonio, Texas, originally hailing from the New Orleans area. She is the author of the poetry collection Lightsheen (subsea-sheen)