Mothers and Daughters Walking

It is June 2020, and my wife
is talking me down, yet again
from the paranoid heights of
imaginary COVID, health
professional that she is. We
quarantine in place, the days
mostly crushed like the
cans in our recycling
bin.

I slide off my harness of fear
by jogging, though my left knee
protests like an unoiled screen
door. So my gait is odd, a mildly
hamstrung horse, for five miles of
therapy.

Who said every cloud has a
silver lining? Surely some are
copper, tin, or even lead? Does
Odin hurl COVID-bolts to keep us
on our toes or do plagues come
from Asgard’s random number
generator?

On my jogs during quarantine
I see mothers and daughters
walking. Peas from the same pod.
High school, middle school, even
fourth graders, home for Zoom
instruction, with Mom and
Dad.

Everyone is tired of our ruffled
feathers from months in the human
chicken coop, and we all…