I met a traveler from an antique land
who stopped me with a blue-gloved hand
and said, “That’s close enough.
You might be carrying viral lint in your trouser cuff.”
I could tell from the smell in the room
he’d been having sex on Zoom.
It was a shame we were so out of phase.
It was a shame we met in these dog days.
The parks are brown.
The rich are out of town.
I walk across Boston Common, forgetting people’s names,
and one by one behind me the trees burst into flames.