Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
—Terence
We have never met
& yet we have still lost sight of each other,
Two lighthouses quavering in fog.
We could not hold ourselves.
This year was no year.
When next generations ask, we will say
It went something like this:
The empty, creaking playgrounds,
Bodies laid straight as celery stalks,
The imprint of warmth, holidays,
Gatherings & people, gone to rust
In our acrid skull.
The moments wavered unscheduled,
Planless, not plotless. Time col lap sed
Into no m ore than a shape
That we felt for numbly
(& tell us: what is the hour
But a rotation by which we mark our grief).
Whole months swept by, fast but dragging,
Like a damp void trapped in the rearview.
Our souls, solitary & solemn.
By then, our fear was old & exact,
Worn-in & stiff as a hand-me-down.
When has horror not been our heirloom.
The heart, chambered by grief.
The mind, assimilated to suffering.
Nevertheless, we walked from that pale plane,
Though we were free to remain.
Hope is no silent harbor, no haven still.
It is the roaring thing that tugs us away
From the very shores we clutch.
Though we have never met,
We have sensed the other all along,
Quiet & wandering, wide-lit
With the urge to move forward.
No human is a stranger to us.