 Hi everyone. Today I'm going to read a poem actually one that I wrote that I've been working on over the past couple weeks and it's dealing with how even though I feel like I'm very lucky and that my quarantine has been with my family and they keep me company and very busy that at the same time I've really noticed the loss of being able to interact with strangers in public places and this poem is kind of about dealing with that particular loss and it's called The Stranger. After days of disinfection and nights plotting survival in the post-corona world that approaches like limbs rolled in a rug and unfurled toward our feet I finally let myself confront this simple thing a mosquito long dead lying on the front door frame I've been afraid to touch it the way I've been afraid to touch most anything my face floats in its glass bubble of regard unscratched the mailbox handle gets a wipe down after our carrier's truck turns the corner in shame we've been in quarantine for weeks and the mosquito or maybe death commiserates its wings fading each day to a more transparent brown its legs quivering with even a minor draft I've walked beneath it in the darkness checking locks I've turned away from it to scroll through images of empty playgrounds and hospital tents imposed on exponential dread I finally touch it in a sort of accident as I clean crown molding and push it off watching as it falls apart mid-air like something between flower petals and ash descending more slowly than I would have guessed in pieces that near invisibility before they touch the ground I wipe it up by reflex then ferry it toward the trash on the way though I stop staring at the desiccated lines of cursive its body forms against the white ammonia cloth and I feel something unmistakable and weightless I felt many times but never quite like this the closeness of an unfamiliar body a stranger something neither friend nor family yet close enough to strangle nudge embrace I gently breathe on the dead mosquito then fold it away in the cloth