a pandemic poem by Sally Swain

Little Painted Girl

Here you still are.

You fade. You smudge.

You blur. You nudge

me to appreciate

my mobility,

the effervescent air,

the lone artist

humming across time.

You are unmasked,

untouched

by viral fears

of years

habitual

crunched, crowned

into novel frictious days

and ways

of living curtained.

Walled.

We peer out from inside.

You walk eternally

toward the narrow window.

Here you still are.

Little Painted Girl

with love, art and soul

from Sally