Freeze Frame

A pandemic poem from March 2020, the week the world stopped.

Early-pandemic loneliness, March 2020. Photo ©2020, Ted Anthony.

AND THE WORLD paused
for a spring it had never seen
still full of us
yet gray and overflowing
with the endless negative space
where we all used to be.

For a moment
a moment still ongoing
we saw life as it would be
if we did not occupy it.

The roads were almost empty of us.
The schools were jammed to the brim
with studentless desks and teacherless lecterns.
The bars and restaurants
(if they stirred at all)
were filled with the activities of the outgoing
as the tables meant for us sat still,
their condiment bottles topped off,
their place settings untouched
by fingers that suddenly might kill.

BUT THE HOUSES. The houses
were full of us. We peered outward
from windows and cracked doors
like chipmunks from their holes
wary that the harmless among us
might suddenly be carrying
what the leader called invisible enemies.

We took steps beyond our boundaries
with mindful gingerness,
knowing that the familiar
only seemed that way.
Everything outside my window —
the trees, the driveway,
the mailbox, the others —
was a pastiche, reminding me
of what had just been
and suddenly wasn’t
and might not be again.

Peak early pandemic, March 24, 2020. Photo ©2020, Ted Anthony, .

THEY PROMISED US
that all the movies
and the video games
would train us for this,
condition us for how to act
when it all fell down.
They prepared us for the explosions,
the undead and
maybe even the silence.
But never once did they erect guideposts
for what to do when everything was still here,
almost familiar,
except for the world,
which had turned itself off.

That was what struck me most
about the moment time stopped,
but only sort of,
in this final month of my 52nd year,
when the world paused.

— Allison Park, PA 3/24/20

---