[a mirror pointed towards an empty corner]

7:02 a.m.: moths love an open kitchen door. The morning air is conspiratorial. Chlorine, bromine, only slightly purple clouds? Is it formaldehyde or a jar of pickles or a patch of sour earth remembering the storm or mats of mycorrhizae at a dead plant’s wake, riding along the dew?

The grain in capturing this light is heavy. Reads somewhere between carbon copy, tv screen, and indecision. Atlanta on another channel than its capillaries. Smudges pass for information on all communiqués. Unlikely and mostly safe and only vulnerable groups as if any lungs should second as plastic buckets full of glowing powders emptied into pools.

This morning is diagnostic. Pacing, itchy scalp, doppler heartbeats carving limbs on space. An ant crawls down the right edge of the screen. Two, now, perhaps the same ant, only flicked off and returned. Seems larger or I smaller or nothing else exists.

Ten a.m.: yet to see a chipmunk, bees, no more than one cardinal, male, and two squirrels. Moths maintain their routes. I have neither heard nor seen an unparked car. A single horn pinches the block. The airplanes, relentless.

I’m glad you left a message; sorry I missed your call. Any worry I have is perpendicular; swerves at the peripheral suggestions of birds. Returns at the thought of someone asleep three rooms away from me. Your someone in the same room in the ICU. Is a mirror pointed towards an empty corner both of us pretend we cannot see.