October Surprise

Lyman Grant

October 29, 2020

I am waiting to hear something

About Hunter home from a steal,

Ukraine coke connections, some threat

Proffered for political profit,

One little salacious back rub

Gone a-wandering.  I’m waiting,

Eyes bugged and blearily affixed

To buzzing dancing pixelated

Pundits portentously pouncing

On my someone’s less than perfect

Past.  

With my last remaining son

Home senioring high school from his bed-

Room, my wife masked for her forty

Institutionally required 

Hours cloistered behind plexiglass,

I e-mail my distanced students 

A mid-term pep-talk.  

We are all

Lonely, glared by our devices,

Locked into the diminishing 

Lives of our own stacked Russian doll

Realities.  I write, “Stay safe.

Enjoy the fall,” and pause only 

A second—I cannot convince 

Myself to clarify I mean 

Only rustling leaves, and bright, cool 

Afternoons—before I hit send.

Lyman Grant is a Texas-expat living in Virginia.  He has published several volumes of poems, most recently 2018: Found Poems and Weather Reports.  Other poems have recently appeared in the anthologies Endlessly Rocking, Written in Arlington, and Words in Concert.