Nina, Easton River
(Hard Of Healing)

I saw you as you looked for me
from across the river, across the bridge.
And I knew to call out would be futile
with the city commotion blocking the way.
-With the law enforcing the bustlings to get home,
'tho their masks made it muffled
and no one will understand them, until tomorrow.

You were easy to unthread
from the bundles of covered faces;
The orange bandana tied around your face
like a robber at a fruit-stand.
Bright, bright in all this dim.

That bandana I had worn tied around my head
the day we took my bike to where the river began.
No, we never found it
but we found where we could begin.

And now they separate us
because somehow two healthies
make a wrong.
I just want to touch your hand
and I'd go home today, knowing
that it's going to be okay.

'Tho we're not sick,
we're a little hard of healing.
There are people dressed
stiffer than us, saying
it's best to heed right now
that there is no safety in numbers.

I just want one.
I want to be the one
to determine my fate,
to gingerly slide that scarf
from your neglected face.

I want to give you back
the sun, the moon, a kiss
and a hand to your cheek.
No man knows what I knew
before this robbery of your beauty.

There's now a man in the river;
fell, pushed, escaping
-no matter now that the authoritative
figures are yelling and pointing
rifles at his struggling existence.
Is it not a cleansing, whole body,
waving his hands for them to see; clean
and empty.
It's just a drowning. People breathe.

No one dares reach for him,
not to dare the touch him.
No one to vouch for his habitual hygiene.
He only wails for a minute
and then he's on his way
to where the river ends.

If you fall in, too
I will dive for you.
'Tho in panic, you may
not know it's me, right away,
these masks and all.
The commotion of the people,
the uniformed and uninformed
all frantic, maybe a few hoping
and innerly pulling for us.

Enforcers will shrill out
that I'm infecting you!
I hope you tell them,
let him.

MC20