Corona-Sonnet

ALBERT HALEY

March 20, 2020

So they told us to close up restaurants and bars, shut doors

to our own homes. We’d already locked up tomb-like

classrooms, left the D-1 arena at maximum capacity for echoes.

At the grocery store I find out not enough hens can sit 

to keep up with egg demand. Not quite the end of the world

and, bright side, perhaps all this elides into an introvert’s dream?

Don’t stand too close to me, grant me lots of domestic time

to putter, then I’ll plop in a chair and read, read, read—

But after a while I lower my prolix novel. I miss the students

of all things. My sloppy clothes guys, the serious girls,

almost all of whom (unlike boys) bring their textbook to class.

I even long for that tepid drinking fountain that used to be

only wiped down on Fridays. It makes me want to go 

to my front door, burst it open, belt out Italian songs in the street. 

An extra line denied me. But screw the form. Mamma mia, si salterà!

ALBERT HALEY is a past winner of the Rattle Poetry Prize. He has had poems appear in The Texas Review, The Texas Observer, Borderlands as well as journals outside the region. He serves writer in residence and Professor of English at Abilene Christian University.