POEM 07

We all are hoping with eyes closed and whispered prayers, to get back to Normal.

This strange, misshapen existence doesn’t fit. It pinches like new shoes and kills us.

It takes away our breath and nobody knows from where it sprang.

We refuse to get complaisant with wearing face coverings in everyday life.

It’s not Normal to wear rubber gloves to the grocery store. Plowing

through bottles of hand sanitizer and bleach is just not Normal.

The funny thing about Normal is…this has always been Normal for me.

Germs and crowds terrify me, the unseen ones more than the visible ones of course.

I always had a face mask at the ready and I’ve carried hand sanitizer like celebrities used to

carry bottles of water, for as long as I can remember there being ‘hand sanitizer.’

Minus the vaccine and people’s lives being snatched away, this is my Normal.

If someone coughed behind me, or in front of me, in a dark theater, it was tantamount to a shout of “Fire”.

I’d want to pop up and sprint for the exit, but that wouldn’t be normal and people would be uncomfortable.

So I am flexible and pull myself into the confines of Normalcy, for my fellow man.

I’d crouch in my place and breath as shallowly as I could without collapsing in the aisle.

That hated pandemic uncovered a comfort zone for me and we all had a new Normal. But the old Normal is out there, we think,

And we are willing to die trying to get it back.

We all need things to get back to Normal, the Normal that is minus losing loved ones and giving up hugs. Okay we like the typical, usual expected as the dictionary defines.