Alas

By Ace Boggess


Statewide Lockdown, Day Twenty-Six


Were the virus not writing us

letters in vanishing ink,

we might meet up for a few

minutes of frantic under-sheet

panic, the usual kind,

human as invention of gods,

awareness of nearness to death,

etc. What prevents us

from inciting our hang-ups

is a hang-up, too: rock

inside a snowball, spiders,

heights, anything that freezes.

I would be there with you

if first I didn’t need to

steady my vibrating hands

& defuse this bomb.

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Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So, and The Prisoners. His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.

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