(Dedicated to Christine Chernoff)
Hello, love
Walking my same route
One foot in each timeline
the most familiar now the most alien.
The tiniest dreams aching:
My cappuccino foam heart
Dissolving into a past lifetime
We lived a few short months ago.
The ghosts of so many dates
Haunting the restaurant windows
covered in brown paper
like the homemade book covers
of schoolchildren;
their own tiny dreams
wriggling free of house arrest.
Guilty to mourn my time.
My losses, not so traumatic,
sitting asymptomatic of a world
infected, of goodbyes crackling
through the static,
and unclasped hands at absent bedsides.
And you, curled up on this couch
Sheltering me.
Hoarded laughter:
That ridiculous 80s cover band
In the Rock Bottom basement,
The intricately carved watermelon boat
Sailing through a tequila-soaked barbeque.
The best parts of my past life,
All of it, in tact.
I cling desperately,
my hands resisting the signal
to relax their grip on old expectations,
and embrace this alien landscape
with you.
Ciao Amore.
We grieve our past together,
which makes me feel selfish
to grieve anything at all.
–Ciao Amore © Mike Chernoff 04/18/2020
From the collection Carry-out Carton Fortress
About this Poem:
I wrote Ciao Amore as part of an April Poetry Tag challenge on Instagram. Each poet was given a piece of art as an inspiration, and had 24 hours to respond with a poem. That poem was then handed to an artist, and they had to respond with an original piece of artwork, etc.
Jane Erlandson took a gorgeous black and white photograph that served as my prompt. It was so haunting and so timely, and made me really feel the weight of the early pandemic. I dedicated it to Christine Chernoff because she is my rock, and she has kept me sane(ish).
Chernoff Writing.com 