and then all at once, dazed, longhaired as we embrace loved ones the shadow spared, and weep for those it gathered in its shroud. A kind of rapture, this longed-for laying on of hands, high cries as we nuzzle, leaning in to kiss, and whisper that now things will be different, although a time will come when we’ll forget the curve’s approaching wave, the hiss and sigh of ventilators, the crowded, makeshift morgues; a time when we may even miss the old-world arm’s-length courtesy, small kindnesses left on doorsteps, the drifting, idle days, and nights when we flung open all the windows to arias in the darkness, our voices reaching out, holding each other till this passes.
