The Dinged-up Armature of Getting by

(Artwork courtesy of Sarah Tell at Distress Press)

The usual hum and bustling thrum of public life has vanished,
leaving only this eerie blank lull
like frozen antelope halted on train tracks,
in a perpetual monolithic limbo.
Birdsong is everywhere,
trills and squawks and even a subtle flapping of wings
suddenly so loud in all of this quiet.
Whales are singing more. Coyotes are roaming the Financial District.
Nature breathes easy as humanity holds its breath.
The streets of rush hour are nearly deserted
Like the hush of wee-hour sojourns:
a pinch of sand sifted onto a kettle drum;
the low-volume crepitation of a needle at the end of record;
or just the slight tremble of putting on ChapStick in the wind’s gelid sting.
The few surgical-masked pedestrians avoid each other
and hustle on their way to essential services.
You can hear every voice,
and the rustle in the movements of faraway things,
even bug swarms and farm machinery and the tap of footsteps and
maybe in the distance
a slight cough.