Marisa Lin
San José
hot afternoon sky &
the track is two frowns
or two smiles glued
in a quarter mile oval
across the dry grass,
crunchy lipped
savannah, kids on bikes
looping mini curlicues on the face
of the tanned earth, muscular fathers
heaving their mountainous chests
above the metal pullup bars, mothers
half running with half smiles while mutts
drunk with the hazards of freedom
chase peevish geese, honking nozzles
made stubborn by the three p.m. heat.
everywhere we are like ants, streaming in wherever
there are holes in the fence, climbing
over five foot chain-links, trespassing
by any dignified means available. no fear
in impunity, our countenances grin
intrepid with the audacity of collective catastrophe, for
this is what pandemic does to us: make runners
out of walkers, ballers out of gamers, public servants
into encroachers of school property. here there is
enough space for our latent selves, enough to
play, to leap, to respire into amphitheater
of smog-bitten sky. here our mouths need not
be covered, we can say whatever we want,
do whatever fear told us not to,
sing & kiss & volley & throw.
in these moments we stretch
like canvas across the gaps,
bodies diverging and converging
in crazy, spastic unity (socially-distanced, of course)
free from shelter, free of restraint, unfettered,
wheeling with abandon over unmowed turf.
in sneakers that jab the sun-doused pavement,
we submit ourselves to swish of net
& glorious sunset
firing our hands across the sky,
ball whisking in punctuated swirls &
here too the virus can unfurl—
microbic tendrils curling from our throats,
we laugh & hug & push & sputter
clouds of pathogens sailing into spring-sung air