Paul Bass Photos
Looking to future in Edgewood Park: Mural outside pavilion (above); mom with 9 new ducklings in the pond.
I believe I need to shower
All signs indicate it
I call people
Yet they don’t return my call
On the other hand, they call me
And I don’t return their call
Whether they’ve showered or not
Of course I don’t know their showering habits
Unless of course we learn
That daily showers wash Covid away
Then we’d all be in the showers
All the time and nobody
Would be answering their phone
And all anybody would say
To anybody else is, please
Hand me my towel
Or who used up all the shampoo I bought
Unless of course someone invents
A phone that operates just fine
In the shower, then we’ll get
Back to calling or not returning calls
All the time, but I personally
Would prefer that someone invent
The vaccine before the shower-proof phone
Yet, like penicillin or radar in WWTwo
The shower-proof phone well
May have important uses
After the pandemic leaves us
And we will be watching history
Documentaries about it and how we all
Had to stay in place and exercise madly
And sweat our way through all this
Home schooling and grow too tired
To bathe the children properly
And so we all just threw them in the shower
Together all at once
Which makes me think of the shower of information
We are all under, the hope and dread
That just keeps running hot,
Now very hot, waves and surges
Of it all over us until we get clean
And it’s all over
And we step out of the shower
And turn to the first bewildered family member
Who wanders by the open bathroom door
On the morning Covid-19 is washed away
And with the healing waters still streaming
Down your face, you call out,
Where’s my towel?