What Remains: the COVID Checkouts

Give and take is the way of the library
Now a breath held, a moment frozen,
And I remain with this: mosquitos,
Bulgaria, the poems of Jane Kenyon.
An awkward freeze-frame, mid-conversation,
Not the self-portrait I'd have chosen.
But here we are together, mosquitos.
It's you and me now, Jane.
We're gonna do this together, Bulgaria.
Last week I could dip into fancy,
Ponder another in a series,
Reject what didn't suit, on a whim;
Now you share my distance, Bulgaria,
Jane--even you, mosquitos.
I clutch your binding close and wonder
What I'll have learned by your pages' end.