Quarantine Day 6: A Walk With Mom

We can’t help but smell the blossoms 

As we walk 6’ apart 

Sometimes one of us on the sidewalk

And one in the street

And sometimes both in the street

Ebbing sometimes too close

And then correcting

Sometimes through the dewy grass

Littered with clover and pinkwhite daisies

It’s aggressively spring

And aggressively quiet

Except for a man talking with authority

At first we think to someone through headphones

And then we conclude 

His ears are empty and he’s telling

Himself something important

Something with authority.

You say I can’t get a read on him. And I think 

it’s different now to exist somewhere else.

I inherited a long vocal awe-ful “wooow!”

From you

And the blossoms are pulling it out of me

Looking, smelling, insisting you smell

Too. Then pictures 

Because it’s an urgent moment.

You remind me to look closely

Your hand is in some pictures

Reaching out

Holding a branch down 

So I can capture blossoms right

Then we cross the tracks

And your wooow comes

At a pile of sticks 

That you insist on capturing

As I insisted on blossoms.

Althea Seloover, 2020