A Poem for a Corona Quarantine in Berlin in the Spring

Hobbling along the cobblestones of New Cologne, I notice the small purple bluebells push past the döner wrappers and cigarette butts. Butter yellow daffodil petals compete with the screaming neon of some American's latest electro-swing band flyer to dance in the wind.

Blackbirds sing over the garbage bins.
Swans squabble in the canal.

The corona erases our physical presence and turns our attachments to our loved ones into electrons vibrating across the Atlantic Ocean.

My love language is Zoom.

Your love language is Instagram Chat.

Plague ships haunt my dreams while you act as if nothing has changed at all.

Quarantine suits you. I"m kidding a bit. Shelter in place makes my hair glow like candles on a Buddhist altar.

Which flower will bloom tomorrow?

Socially distancing Germans line up at the Edeka to buy their geraniums but I prefer the wild trees bursting forth in the void that was the Death Strip.

Alone but together. Calls form Fiji where I sing of bombs bursting in air. Colombia sends me minions. But nothing from Sweden.

There was never ever anything coming from Sweden. So normality, at last.

--inspired by a book of prompts from Chen Chen and the poem Night Falls like a Button.  Prompted by the fantastic Jane Flett of the Reader in Berlin