My friends will have to forgive me as I rush back
to my tiny office under the house, familiar blue chair,
 
my background always a blur to the world
to hide the hot water heater and a bookcase
 
stacked with collections by my favorite poets:
Yeats, Stevens, Rilke, Amichai, Glück —
 
the people who help me navigate my life
even through the most expansive times.
 
Perhaps that is what the lockdown was meant
to teach me: how I can learn to keep my world
 
at bay, to appreciate even the people I know
from a distance, their blurred lives, faces covered,
 
voices muffled—so I have to listen even harder,
discover the pleasures of being vigilant.