Pleas Through a Glass

Chad Hammond

Corresponding author(s): Chad Hammond, 649 Evergreen Boulevard Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7W 0Y7. nascent.knowledge@gmail.com

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/pjmis.v17i1-2.7419

Article History: Received 12/09/2020; Accepted 05/11/2020; Published 28/01/2021

Abstract

This poem enters one of many craters left by the COVID-19 pandemic and bears witness to the divisions exposed within.

Keywords

Pandemic; COVID-19; Essential workers; Racism; Women

Tucked away from sight
the new are catching the old.
Third today, she coughs,
wheeling the chair to the window
where the young glares await.
How does one entrust to an other
so hated the care of her mother?
Tonight behind this glass she asks
Please Mme, thank you, not mine,
lift your hand to hers before you go.

#Stayhome, there in-between
shuttered windows and shattered screens.
Post all your juvenile pleas
to the other side of these
sublimate the fate you dread.
A petried mind cuts and swipes
her way back to the others.
Tonight behind this glass she asks
Please, peers, take these times
broadcast a future beyond boredom.

Big boxes, big windows
bring a glow to a shutdown heart.
Food before virtue, ‘cept for the workers
underneath transparent skin
they move ‘long this hungry machine.
She works the stocks, runs the yards,
Pushed on all fronts much too far.
Tonight behind this glass she asks
Please, sir, you don’t need to shout,
What are you searching for?

Downtown, still life displays
the quiet ruptured storefronts,
streets rattle the shades
with fury, her boy’s life pressed
into a fragile photo frame.
She reads signs of foreclosure
est. ’74, gone today.
Tonight behind this glass she asks
Please, God, bring to those past eyes
a glimmer beyond their wake.