Julene Tripp Weaver
Oh yes, I’m sheltering in place, and social
distancing—watching life energy drain
into germaphobia—a grandmother screams
to protect her cart at the grocery store.
Sanitizer the new king. We stand six feet apart
on sidewalks marked with chalk we wait
to enter a store, or the farmer’s market,
move forward with encouraging statements
You’re getting closer! three double steps till
Almost there! We avoid elevators, the rule:
two at a time. On watch, eyes down, for
direction-arrows in supermarket aisles.
But I lived through AIDS, know how to
slip on a mask. I’m not afraid of this virus.
Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist and writer in Seattle. She has a chapbook and two
full size poetry books. Her most recent, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and won the Bisexual Book Award. Her work is widely published in journals and anthologies, including: The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now, Mad Swirl, Stonewall Legacy Anthology and Day Without Art Special 30 Year Edition. You can find more of her work on Twitter at @trippweavepoet or on Instagram at @julenet.weaver. K. Nizar, a multi-disciplinary artist from Kerala’s Kozhikode, who began his career on movie-sets doing art works before becoming a visualization artist for a leading newspaper in Kerala.
Global Poemic 