Quarantining with You
By Elizabeth Quiñones-Zaldaña
The rebuke of your love is better
than the made bed of isolation
and an awkward kiss I prefer
to this rented dominion kept neat.
I would not have said so at first,
but on day ten I can’t deny
the missed meal of your company
is a steep climb on an empty stomach.
Close quarters, you’ve always kept them
with me—we hadn’t left for the desert yet,
but I remember you—now to sit still,
to seclude just us, makes emergency candles melt
and hidden dollar bills dwindle into the afterlife.
What sort of person are you? The one I can’t resist.
I’m afraid of what you will say, what days succeeding
without number will reveal; when the rice runs out,
the faucet spins dry, when I’m driven to do without
the list of things people need to be prepared.
