What Diaries Are For

What use are the pages of diaries?

A blank slate for those mental fingerprints. 

Spite Asians like some wish to spite a virus. 

A hand grips the slick pole on the subway

as a stranger breathes, “You dirty Chinese.”

What use are the pages of diaries?

To speak on knives gouging out Corona

from human flesh because of ethnicity. 

To deny a doctor’s medical care,

even if you are the one with Covid-19. 

These stories record shame in diaries. 

Skin bruised by stripping their citizenship. 

Virus exposes the disease within.

Covid Lovers

Rondeau for the drifting of you and I

were closest when we were just passing by.

Quarantine trapped us, pushed us breast to breast. 

Conversations walk the tightrope, don’t fret. 

Or fall into arguments and lie 

that you don’t Skype lawyers with a sigh

about us not seeing eye to eye. 

Tensions send my heart into arrest.  

Rondeau for the drifting of you and I.  

Lady calls an old lover and talks shy.  

To give their stitched-up bond another try. 

All the world may end if Covid won’t rest.  

She longs for stability in her chest. 

For both, individuality dies. 

Rondeau for the courting of you and I.

Sakura's Sestina

What do you say Mr. Washington?

Tap the shoulder of your Sakura. 

Tell her not to be so transient with her bloom. 

They’re popcorn trees, watch them dance. 

Hinted with the blood of the fallen. 

Petals pirouette in the air, a ballet with Lady Rona. 

Transparent acrobat. Swan dives down the throat does Lady Rona. 

Stagnant economy creates an awfully watchful Washington.  

White flowers shout revolution even as they’ve fallen. 

Sunlight ricochets off a somber Sakura. 

Obey distance girls, six feet if you want to dance. 

“Misunderstood,” cries Lady Rona. “I bring America’s new bloom.

From fractured status quos, new rules start to bloom.

‘Opportunity’ cries America. ‘Who’s gonna get rich from the Rona?’

Throw money into the market. Watch the jagged line dance. 

Two trillion reasons to care. Where’s your cape Mr. Washington?

The finale is a must-see. Don’t grow old too fast Sakura!

It would be a shame if you became one of the fallen.”

It’s Friday the thirteenth. More flowers than usual have fallen. 

How fitting for the year. An expedited bloom. 

White rain on concrete. Why do you cry Sakura?

A redder face than usual. Cherry-stained by a Lady Rona. 

Or is it the weather? This March sports a warmer Washington.  

Either way you still have the grace to dance. 

Could I win your favor next year? Might I interest you in a dance? 

Is it rude if I step on your cousins that have fallen?

Truth be told I’ve never been to Washington.

I’ll fill you in on all the details on your next bloom. 

Maybe we have a new roommate in Lady Rona. 

Seasonal like the flu. I guess y’all have that in common Sakura. 

And there’s a reason I wrote about you this year Sakura. 

It’s said there’s renewal every time you choose to dance. 

I’m reminded how we’re similar thanks to Lady Rona. 

Our beauty only transient before our petals have fallen. 

But we must leave good soil for the new flowers to bloom.

What do you say Mr. Washington?

Ms. Sakura. Aren’t you mesmerized by Lady Rona?

From Washington back around, she made this world dance. 

A million petals for the fallen, who couldn’t blossom past her bloom.