Love in time of Corona

Forget star-crossed lovers alone in the dark

On the balcony out in Verona,

It's the makeshift hospital in Central Park,

And love in the time of corona...

It's nurses leaving their children behind,

In ski-masks and snorkeling goggles,

It's worries they banish out of their minds

And all that they face in their struggles,

It's volunteers making much needed supplies,

The wearisome gaze of each donor,

Compassionate mayors with grief in their eyes

And love in the time of corona...

It’s children we teach in a virtual world,

With nothing beneath to support them,

The lives that we had to uproot and remold,

Collective compassion and boredom.

The guy stocking shelves, the delivery man, -

Public servants and private personas,

The work-at-home mom with an everyday plan

And love in the time of corona…

It's all of the borders we willingly closed,

The spaces we've carved for enclosure,

The pain that we shared in the poems composed

Unable to keep our composure.

It's New York, it's New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit,

Wuhan, Paris, Rome, Barcelona,

It's all that we love that we're forced to avoid

Out of love.... in the time of corona...