Viral

The illness burns and burns through you, bursting into awareness in aching mornings, boring you into the boredom of confinement. At last, after years deepening isolation, you want out, you want the world again. We walk through Prospect Park closely peeled against each other like lovers, but your eyes are in the autumn leaves, your senses tickling across the perfect October days. In your fevered haze, you are not bothered with separating them, with making any hasty decision, but later, on your solitary morning walk along the East River, you are able to sift through the pieces, sort out your insights. 

The other day, in the quiet sunshine, I felt joy. In retrospect, for a minute, you feared it was a mirage, just a trick of the lights, but the feeling reminded itself to you again, again, quietly but certain, unwavering.

In a quiet October morning,  you decide to believe it. Decide to be unwavering in return