Catherine Chandler's Poetry Blog

Monday, May 11, 2020

Pandemic Villanelle

Thank you to Melissa Balmain and Kevin Durkin for choosing the following poem for publication in the May 4th issue of Light Poems of the Week.







 

 

 

Cuarentena

—Punta del Este, Uruguay

by Catherine Chandler

A pride of lions lounges on a street
in Africa, while I sit here inside,
hobnobbing with my little parakeet.

She chatters as I Instagram and tweet.
We seem to take the quarantine in stride.
In Wales, as gangs of goats invade a street,

I FaceTime, bake, clean, sleep and overeat.
In gazing seaward from my glorified
Bastille, I doubt my little parakeet

is happy with her cage, her millet treat
and cuttlebone. I bet she’d rather ride
the wind. As Thai macaques dash down a street

Jumanji-esque, and screaming peacocks meet
in empty squares in Ronda, Spain, I bide
my time. At least my little parakeet,

free from this government-imposed retreat,
may leave. And though I never thought that I’d
release my little lime-green parakeet,
away she flies above Artigas street!


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