Marooned

By Lori Bonati

It’s the year of the virus.
I’m single, a castaway
on a two-bedroom island,
and I’ve been talking to the furniture.

Conversation with Mabel,
my table, can be wooden
until I summon my collection
of Frenchmen with their jaunty cork berets.

When I want to read a book
or take a nap with my feet up,
I turn to Cher, my comfortable chair,
a recliner who’s inclined to oblige.

My handsome floor lamp, Shady,
is a debonair dancer,
but tangling with the cord
makes it difficult to do the tango.

Sophocles, my sofa, is
a respite in the evenings,
cushioning the breaking news.
The world is shattered, but he is unmoved.

Once, while weeping, I spilled wine,
but Rhoda, my chilled club soda,
helped me to blot out the spot.
Whatever would I do without my friends?

Lori Bonati relocated to Tucson from New York in 2003. She draws on her experience as a school psychologist and music hobbyist to write short stories, children’s literature, poetry, and songs. Her published work includes:

– The Snake Path (winner of Paradigm Prize), www.bardsy.com, 2018
– Song Seeds, Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press, 2019
– selected poems, Desert Tracks: Poems from the Sonoran Desert, Lelepono Press, 2019
– selected poems, Purifying Wind, Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press, 2020.

Marooned was inspired in April, while Lori listened to spring birds singing with abandon outside her apartment door. She intended the piece to be a more serious statement about social isolation, but it refused to comply. Humor, she believes, may very well be what gets us through this.