Yesterday it looked like a funeral procession.
Today I sit in the procession, a hundred cars deep
in each direction. The line staggers a quarter mile
from Trader Joe’s, to just past Riverside Chapel.
We’re here to test for Covid. I hiked, masked,
Colorado’s Coal Mine Pass, panting in thin frigid air
at eleven-thousand feet. Two miles up in the Rockies
an unlikely socially distant reach to catch it, but who
knows? New Mexico, my home, says it’s possible.
Seventy-two hours from now, if negative, I’ll pick up
TJ’s wild salmon to barbecue, treat the grill marks
as music and ad lib a Grateful Dead song or two.
If positive, and corona’s cauldron swallows me,
I could be back in line, voiceless, ready to go up
in smoke at Riverside. One more viral data point
ascending high country desert’s pellucid morning sky.
