I lost my desire to rhyme

about the same time

plexiglass invaded our stores

and pimply clerks ordered

me to click the bleached pads

of dollars, exchanged for goods–

shoppers, too long locked up

and lonely, a kind of death usurped

a joy, usually reserved for spring,

and retuning things,

but the unknown lacks name,

and there’s no map through,

our hearts were confused

and there were no rhymes,

and no rhythm, because time

ceased to be the count count

of seconds, minutes, hours–

Remember, I said it,

it’s unknown, the future bits,

wrinkled, in those deep wrinkles

a hot iron can’t unwrinkle–

so we resigned ourselves

to the sloppiness of prose,

in uneven meter,

I mean, me,

I resigned myself to getting by,

and now I’m on the other side,

of a vaccine,

MRNA with a spike protein,

and I say inject it in these veins,

so I may return to living again,

a life, with enjambed rhymes,

with slant rhymes, NO, a life

with hard rhymes,

like strife,

and knife,

and happiness.