Dull Emergency

What’s up with these open-ended days?
Under-employed, we shuffle to the beach,
stoop for shells as if for souvenirs from afar—
Sanibel Island, maybe, where once we stuffed
our luggage with shells the size of fists.
Now we point overhead and grunt like cavemen,
agog at the novelty of a plane searing the sky
as if it were the first flight out of here.
Stranded, a year into the pandemic,
no one has any news to share, vocabularies
reduced to virus, vaccine, variants—
that dull emergency of the daily count.
Time stretches, sags, goes pear-shaped.
There’s little to say but still we mumble
behind our masks, eyes widening or squinting
in exaggerated empathy or sorrow, desperate
to communicate. A straggling sun
casts dips and hollows in the sand,
washes the shore in weak light. Campers crowd
the parking lot, snowbirds shivering in portable saunas,
pop-up tents in this California of Canada.
But we’re lucky, so lucky. Driftwood in strange,
soft-serve shapes algae-green water. Given
another chance, we’ll snorkel with mantas at midnight,
paraglide from cliff-faces, jounce on camels
across blinding deserts. We’ll squeeze
into seats on prop planes, knees to chins, and scream
with joy at the next adventure. All those words
we held back? Next time. Just you wait.