Hand Washing
Who doesn’t enjoy washing hands
With prompting even little kids do
The graceful, soft shape of the soap
The scented bars like little boats
Our fingers ride to health and to hope
Even the proud gels stand militarily tall
By the shining sink as if to say,
At your service, sir, dispense away.
Then there’s the warm water fall with just an edge of hot
And the way you move the foam, always a lot
Of it through the digits, over the wrists
Into the creases, up to the tips
Down a soapy smooth slope and begin again.
Now of course we also count
To vanquish the viruses and root them out
To send them down the drain
You count to twenty and begin again
For no rule says twenty’s enough,
With these creatures who play so rough
So I’m often way beyond, soaping and turning
Rapidly beneath the hot water even slightly burning
Until one hand cupped in another
Becomes a single indistinguishable globe
Of whirling clean-ness so remarkable to behold
Its own world so disinfected and foamy white
Only then can we be rubbed totally safe
Without a left or a right.
Morning Prayer
Since all is God or of God
Or whatever we call what’s before us
Since it all began with the breathing of the breath
We must give thanks for it all, including the virus
For the misery it’s provided
For the panic and the lockdown
For our imprisonment, our quarantine
For our losses and our anxieties
For our morning tears, our evening medical blues
Our inability to not listen to the news
Thanks, Lord, for this, and for this season
Of all our fears
Should we survive, one day we may discern a reason
On the other hand, today here’s a deal
Please consider, though you might refuse
Please take it all back, this preview of our death
In exchange, just return to us our daily breath.