by Joe Cottonwood
photo: KEITH WONG
Mrs. Peters who just last week was teaching you
handwriting on Zoom, sweet Mrs. Peters
just died of the virus. Died really fast.
I hold you and ask how you feel.
Small, you say. Really small.
Me too.
We go to Multnomah Falls.
On the footpath bridge
water splashes cold wind.
Droplets form on eyelashes
which makes us feel we’re crying.
In the roar we have to shout.
A couple of bare-face teens are kissing
and couldn’t care less. You ask
if you may pull down your mask
to spit and watch the gob fall
down, down, down. I say
Me too!
and then we both spit.
I say You know, don’t you,
you aren’t so really small.
You, my spirit guide, you
take my hand and say
The gobs will reach the ocean.
Joe Cottonwood is proud to be called an old hippie. His new book of poetry is Random Saints—poems of kindness for an unkind age. He’s a semi-retired home repair contractor and a lifelong writer sheltering with his high school sweetheart among redwood trees in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California.
