Quarantine
Quarantine
By Christine Hamm
Even Andrew Cuomo finds time to call his mother,
says the text I send to my firstborn son,
referring to the governor of New York
whose current job is attending
to a global pandemic
with the world’s epicenter in his state.
“My mother is not expendable,”
the governor says while the whole world listens,
including presumably,
the President of the United States,
whose own deceased mother
one tends to wonder about.
It is at times like these that I remember
my son has two parents,
one of whom is not me;
and two sets of genes,
none of which could be described as
touchy-feely.
Yet I have no doubt my son loves me dearly
and, by no means, considers me expendable.
Au contraire,
more likely he considers me invincible,
despite my status as a member
of the frail elderly.
But, truth be told, we are all human,
and now while touching is forbidden,
feeling is uppermost,
which likely explains the reason why
now, more than ever,
even Andrew Cuomo finds time to call his mother.
Prior to moving to Portland, Oregon in 2016, Christine Hamm spent 20 years as poet laureate for The Concord Monitor (NH), summarizing the previous year in rhyme for its annual New Year's editorial page. She also wrote feature articles, primarily Arts & Entertainment, for that paper and other local, state and national publications for more than a decade before serving five terms as a member of the New Hampshire legislature. She has interviewed numerous writers and poets, and studied with Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet and MacArthur Fellow, Charles Simic, at the University of New Hampshire.