Love in the Time of Coronavirus

PAUL JUHASZ

March 23, 2020

Perhaps I was too concerned about getting in another ride or two before the end of the day,

Perhaps I was worried that with everything ordered closed, everyone ordered home, I won’t make enough for the rent, for the car payment,

Perhaps I was too frustrated by how few people seem to be taking this seriously, getting their nails done, shopping the outlets, playing basketball,

Perhaps I was distracted by “how bad this could get” fears,

But it wasn’t until later that night that I realized she did not ask me to join her for a cup of coffee; she asked me five times, each time more insistent, each “are you sure?” more plaintive. It wasn’t until later that night that I recognized the disappointment lacing her parting, “Thank you for the ride.”

Perhaps the coffee was simply gratuity. 

Perhaps “coffee” just meant coffee. 

Perhaps we’re too laden with the weight of fatality rates and infection curves to remember to cultivate connection.

Perhaps we overlook the myriad glories, the possibilities wrapped within every “perhaps.”

PAUL JUHASZ has read at dozens of conferences and festivals across the country, including Scissortail and the Woody Guthrie Festival. His work has appeared in bioStories, Red River Review, Voices de la Luna, Dragon Poet Review, Ain’t Gonna Be Treated This Way, and Speak Your Mind, and his comic journal, Fulfillment: Diary of an Amazonian Picker, chronicling his seven-month sentence at Amazon, has been published in abridged form in The Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, then serialized in Voices de la Luna. He currently lives in Oklahoma City.