Just what I need in plague season       

by Nina Rubinstein Alonso


Dead crow on my fender
parked here barely ten minutes 
likely fell from that crab-apple’s wide 

branches stretching across the sidewalk
scattering blossoms and a funeral bird

just what I need in plague season
first glance looks like clotted fabric
or rain-soaked flowers blown down by

sudden gusts but it’s an innocent 
black bird on my rain-splattered car

dustpan slides this feathered soul
into a trash barrel while I shiver
inside my rain-soaked jacket 

see other fear-masked soggy humans
mailing bills with nervous gloved hands

feel the vibration of pandemic fire
silent invisible messenger   
threatening sickness and death   

though gloomy discouraged lonely
I’m here for whatever 

incomprehensible reasons
a cranky being walking
around sad-singing alive.

* * * * *

"Just what I need in plague season" was first published in Bluepepper.

Nina Rubinstein Alonso’s work appeared in U. Mass. Review, The New Yorker, Ibbetson Street, MomEgg, Ploughshares, Sumac, Bagel Bards, New Boston Review, WomenPoems, Muddy River Poetry Review, Wilderness House Review, Constant Remembrance, Cambridge Artists Cooperative, etc.  Her stories, one a Pushcart nominee, were published by Southern Women’s Review, Tears and Laughter, Broadkill Review, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, etc.  Her book This Body was published by David Godine Press, her chapbook Riot Wake is upcoming from Červená Barva Press, and another poetry collection, a story collection, and a novel are in the works.