If

A Crowned Lady
Parades sadly
Through cities,
Into hills,
And valleys,
Beyond the Southern Cross.

She prays fervently
And all I do is
Touch my forehead,
My stomach
My shoulders.
Up to down,
Left and right,
As if condemned.

Perhaps I should
Be more afraid
But strangely
I find myself calm
Or the waking dead.

All the while I joke:
Toilet paper hoarders,
People who react,
Who do not act,

Me, myself and I,
Absorbed by ‘what if,’
and
Benjamin Moore paint,
Green,
Color code 33a352.
And like blood,
It covers my hands.

Thrashing in still of night,
The overhead fan cuts
The rooms quiet darkness
Like an executioner’s ax.
But still…
there is that code
And the fact that
No fact begins with ‘if.’