When I finally see you after the pandemic,
we have that pent-up conversation
which starts
with the eyebrow-raising raincoat that you are wearing.
Well, it’s better than the now-defunct
face shield that swooshes out of place.
Maybe it should be designated in the PPE body count
statistics. Your mouth is turbocharged
and sets up shop—
the neighbor that started a fire to see
what would happen to the stained glass panels
on the front door,
the dog walker that carried around a black marker
to cross out naughty words
in public bathrooms,
the checkout person that gave you a dirty look
when you said
that you didn’t want
to donate a dollar to some random no-name charity.
Didn’t the store make enough money
to donate without your pennies?
& the date that ordered a movie theater pickle
and slurped pickle juice
throughout the credits.
I want to whip up a tale without it sounding
like bad case law.
Oh. Oh.
There was the boyfriend that got stuck living
with me during the pandemic.
We grew close
like color-coordinated skies— eventually our skin melded together.
When the pandemic was over,
the doctor
had to perform an operation to separate us.
That took 55 hours.
I got the better internal organs
& new skin. He got the one-season arc
of bandages and physical therapy,
before hardening like a dopey papier-mâché mask
in no-frills makeup. I keep him as a fossil,
but it’s mediocre, mediocre,
at best.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 2.
Dorsía Smith Silva is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Best of the Net finalist, Best New Poets nominee, Cave Cavem Poetry Prize Semifinalist, Obsidian Fellow, and Full Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize Shortlist (2021) and has recently been published or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Cream City Review, Poetry Northwest, The minnesota review, The Offing, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. She is the author of Good Girl (micro-chapbook), editor of Latina/Chicana Mothering, and the co-editor of seven books. She has also attended the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop, Tin House Workshop, and the Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop. Lastly, she has a Ph.D. in Caribbean Literature and posts on Twitter @DSmithSilva.
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