The Clean Blue Field
The clean blue field is a comfort now.
I send out letter after letter trying
to convince someone to pay me money
so I can sleep indoors and eat.
Then it’s back to the clean blue field.
Nonjudgmental. Static. Broken only
by a wrinkled, hand-cut paper
telling me to wear a mask, to avoid
messy foods, to work by myself.
These days alone is where it’s at.
The clean blue field protects me from
accidental eye contact or conversation
with the person across from me.
It enforces, with its institutional cerulean,
the subtle separation between me
and the student working on a paper;
the elderly woman filling out tax forms;
the stubbly man reading a mystery.
I sip from my covered beverage (allowed)
and find an excuse not to look down
at my laptop. Instead I let my gaze linger
a moment longer, lost in the artificial sky.
/ / /
14 January 2022
Colonie NY
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