Ninety-One (Eighty Eight)

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There are ninety one days from
the start of the year until
this moment
first of april
no joke
even though that ninety one days
feels like ninety one years
or ninety one lifetimes
ask me how I know and I’ll
tell you that I called my grandmother
eighty-eight in isolation
and twenty twenty is the sum of
every summer sun she’s sat under
and every morning light she’s risen to
and every starry sky she’s slept beneath
for every year of her long stretching life
so you are not wrong when you feel stretched thin
worn out
hands dry and cracking from so much staying home
and doing nothing
trying to be clean
you are not wrong when you feel strung out
cracking
voice soft and shaking from so much immediate silence
and not speaking
trying to be sane
through ever widening distance
under your own roof
can you imagine that loneliness is lonelier
than aloneness even in this
ninety one days of twenty twenty
finds me pushing straight pins through
hospital approved fabric to make
not good enough but not as bad as nothing masks
for the best men and women we send into this fight

did you know yesterday
they floated a hospital ship
red cross emblazoned
down the hudson river
and called it hopeful

on day ninety one I break down and cry out
louder than I intended
as I listen to a recording of
the cheers and claps from the apartment windows
new york city
the year of the plague
as the best men and women end their shift
at the best hospitals in the world
as the best men and women begin their shift
at the best hospitals in the world
where the best people will still go to die because
the best efforts, straight pins, fabric and hope
cannot beat the first ninety one days of
twenty twenty
eighty eight
the rest of our ever shortening lives