J P Dancing Bear

Ghosts Know Nothing of Social Distancing 

And so a breath of wind brushes your neck,
an unmasked whisper, and the unstoppable whimpering
like a chorus of leaky faucets. 

My house is a hallway, with all the doors open
and the bedsheets are off the beds and wrapped
around heads. Soughs of dust like the soft voices
of the dead. 

And I, I am a shadow
drifting from frame to frame.
Mirrored and haunted.
Trying to place the faces. 

And the ghosts get closer.

I can feel their whispers on my neck.
Where is my mask now?
Ungloved fingers, dead cold,
grasping my body.

I cannot remember the names
of these people. Once so close
I could smell them, and now crowding shadows—
I try to speak and my mouth releases its dust. 

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J P Dancing Bear is editor of Verse Daily. He is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, most recently, Of Oracles and Monsters (Glass Lyre Press, 2020) and Fish Singing Foxes (Salmon Poetry, 2019). His work has appeared in hundreds of magazines and elsewhere.