before the lockdown

A poem.

I remember we closed the restaurant

two hours early that day in March. 

the dishwasher & servers left through

the emergency door with the broken alarm,

an exit that didn't know how or when to react.

enormous flies crowded the scraps we left

for them in the dented trash-cans:

our best-paying customers that month,

the period just before the before-times

ended. I stayed behind to scrub tables & wash floors

while an orange sun slumped & fell over like a sick man

unconvinced of his own mortality. at the bar

my manager shook her head & stacked quarters 

in even rows that glinted in the ruby blaze of the OPEN 

sign. eventually, we ran out of things to do,

things to say, as we squinted in the glare

of how little we actually knew one another.

outside the gusts swept in off the bay

& nudged plastic bags -- the kind they tried

to outlaw -- down the empty sidewalk

& through the doorway we'd kept open in case

anybody felt bold enough to seek shelter.

when my hours ran out I hung up my apron

& stood on the sidewalk where I drank the last 

of my smokes & watched a stoplight flash yellow

like an eye checking for signs of life

between moments of uneasy sleep.

the tobacco was dry & I felt empty, pulled down,

like a lifeboat defeated by an unseen hole.

I dropped the cigarette on the ground

& had to stamp on it three times

before the embers died enough

that I felt comfortable leaving them

on the pavement, tiny orange stars.

at a nearby bar I bought a gin & tonic,

brushed aside a mask acquired in panic

off eBay at scalp prices two weeks before

& tasted the liquor's weakness from warm glass.

the man behind the bar gazed at the empty stools,

then at me. to fill the air between us with anything

we talked about rumors of death in the city

& beyond the highways & across the mountains 

& plains. there was chatter of closure,

maybe tomorrow, perhaps the day after. 

but we had no way to know what was coming:

a world of endless sirens, a city with no voice,

the constant taste of mask on my tongue,

the broken-arm ache of having no one to hug,

the knowledge that you're in a nightmare

without the power to open your eyes & escape.