Like many poets, I have a growing collection of pandemic poems. Here is one for a smile.  In the San Francisco summer fog I feel even more like I am hibernating.  Hope you and yours are staying as well and joyful, as you can.

Cardboard Boxes
( Shelter-in-Place; May 2020)

Lying inside, on the carpeted floor
of my college dorm double,
I crayoned a red and gold spiral galaxy
on the ceiling of my cozy furniture box.

I was hidden, snuggled and crated—dog in a den,
baby swaddled, snow piled to windows,
swathed in blue blankets, white quilts.
Lines of poetry snaked and danced
on the earth-colored, paper walls.

Years later, my carton is bigger,
way more expensive— glass windows,
wood, stucco—mortgaged not scavenged.
I hibernate, but not asleep,
emerge daily blinking in the sun.

Words whirl and revolve inside me.
I am a comforter for myself and family.
Comets still swirl above my head
and those of my neighbors sleeping
in tents, tarps and boxes at City Hall.