Sleep Cycle

By Margaret R. Sáraco

Troubles spread between bedsheets and coverlets
pain of now cuts my back like a sharpened knife,
news reels turn in my anxious mind.

Masked and unmasked children crowd school hallways.
a single ventilator in a hospital packed with pandemic sufferers,
children with cancer waiting for someone to care for them.

Geese walking their young across busy highways,
sanitizer, toilet paper, sympathy cards disappearing from shelves,
relatives grieving for dead in video calls.

On the other side of the bed my love twists and turns,
we wake before our alarm, before
cats cry for breakfast and daylight

hoping for a seismic shift
or a sign the nightmare has passed
or truly a nightmare, never occurred.

“I did not intend to write about the pandemic and all the sorrows that accompanied it, yet it seeped into everything I wrote. Usually, as a writer for many years, I know and understand my process. With such heavy weight, it usually takes some time before a tragedy or grief can enter my writing. For instance, it took years after my mother died before I could write about her. I write daily. I am also a teacher and an activist. I offer two poems for your project. I believe in recording history with as many voices as possible.”