Isolation Love Poem with Daffodils
“To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.”
“Spring,” Edna St. Vincent Millay
You start the day intending to write a love poem
to yourself, to what things you still find beautiful:
your grandmother’s pink depression glass that
you’re using every day, the hundreds of colorful
scarves you can tie over your mouth and nose
when you need to go out. But now you’re not
thinking about those things, roaming from
the bedroom to the living room and back again,
leaning against the wall of your kitchen and staring
out through the broken blind that won’t be fixed
anytime soon. It’s been crooked for months, maybe
longer, offering a sideways view of rooftops, CTA
tracks, and the western sky. Last summer, a man
stood in your living room and took a picture through
that blind, made the view from your apartment his
Facebook cover photo though he never knew you
knew that. And even though you haven’t seen
him since December, you still think about him now.
When you do leave your rooms, you’re on the east
side of the building, the lake off limits but visible.
You pace the sidewalk, giving space to dog walkers
and joggers, look at the daffodils growing in scattered
bunches by the door. They’re taking a long time to
bloom this year, longer than ever. You’re restless
but you watch and wait. One is just starting to open
its yellow mouth, still growing despite everything.
Jen Finstrom is both part-time faculty and staff at DePaul University, working at the UCWbL as Outreach Coordinator. She was the poetry editor of Eclectica Magazine for thirteen years, and recent publications include Dime Show Review, Eunoia Review, Rust + Moth, Stirring, and Thimble Literary Magazine, with work forthcoming in Gingerbread House Literary Magazine and Silver Birch Press.