March 2020

A heavy metal band surrounds your head.
aaaaaaThe body permeates with anxious heat
which battles, wrestles, and pins you to bed.
aaaaaaDepression led you to a silent retreat
to watch sick robins topple over nests,
aaaaaato ask the body ache, where is the mind?
Such brilliant jewels and change you do possess
aaaaaamean nothing but fantasy left behind.
Around here, we are living elegy,
aayou cried an ocean-wide without salted tears.
Said Buddhists: Pain is not the enemy.
aaYou seek a mother’s wisdom to calm your fears.
Remember pain is pearled, she wrote to you
aabut you cannot steal the world’s endless blue.  

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Tracy Tong is a librarian in NYC. She is an incoming MFA student at Brooklyn College.