UMLÄUT 2020 - THE PANDEMIC ISSUE
EFFECTS
Hannah Duane
Rain in funny droplets is all too slate
As we pad two blocks to a white-washed cafe.
The fancy one because
It is raining because
I am going to miss her
In empty streets, she muses:
the weather was like this my first day in San Francisco
I wasn’t planning for this to be my last.
And I hug her tight though
space is already there; I am much taller.
She says: I will be alright and you will be better.
She says: Twenty hours to Turkey, two weeks of quarantine.
I say: What about your family?
Two cappuccinos, a small bag of cookies I am sappy and
So lucky to have known you, she says
I am the lucky one and I remember:
it’s Irish soda bread and matzo ball soup,
it’s coffee with milk foam
and a funny old man in black.
She hugs me again and says
Goodbye, my good friend,
then walks away confident enough
to fool me standing there
trying not to cry with the rain.
