Quarantine, Washington State
by Jenifer Browne Lawrence
One towhee on the crossbar of the traffic barricade,
it's quieter than usual in America.
Cherry blossoms call the Mason bees
to do the frontline work. It's Thursday and we forgot
about garbage night, you ask me to stop walking
past the house with oversized flags and a mailbox
hand painted in camo. I change
the roster for my feet, tomorrow
we won't drive to Pullman for the game,
there is no game, this is no game,
you scrape lichen from the porch rail
and try to make me laugh,
my breath thin and cloudy, something tilted
lies like a plastic film over a bowl of warm rice,
condensation gathers in the center,
releases a tear drop on the other side of this business.
Even with eyes gravelly from insomnia,
all the imperfections are in focus.
The sanitation truck backs up our dead-end street,
beeping steadily as a heart monitor.
We have lived a long time, and resist
the urge to scream out the window.
Jenifer Browne Lawrence is the author of Grayling (Perugia Press), and One Hundred Steps from Shore (Blue Begonia Press). Awards include the Perugia Press Prize, the Orlando Poetry Prize, and the James Hearst Poetry Prize. Her work appears in Bracken, Cincinnati Review, The Coachella Review, Los Angeles Review, Narrative, North American Review, and elsewhere.