I have been jogging in the Washington Park Arboretum most weekday mornings since the social distancing suggestions were introduced. The Arboretum is pleasant, especially in the morning, with wide paths, some paved, some not, and consistent maintenance. The width of the paths and roads is important, of course, to allow safe passage of pedestrians, joggers and bicyclists going about their mornings. There is a friendly intimacy to calculating approaches to maximize distance, and to avoid leaving exhaled droplets airborne for others to encounter. Hope, care, and bodily fluids among strangers.
Contrails
Inside her smile it is her breath
That may be poison, virulent,
And so I cut hard right across the trail
Returning her kind look and cheating death
In this light moment as we jog and cross.
I worry for the cloud of where I went.
Before we passed the droplets fail
To fall I fear and scatter in the air
Across her path. It can’t be right to share
With her so damp a truth, such loss.
