By Abigail Kohlberg

Are we worried too much, or not enough?

It’s empty in the hallways.

People come by to take their things, but

I didn’t see them, just heard the quiet shuffling.

Are they mourning, back at home?

The pandemic took much more than lives away.

Everyone is losing time, losing their minds.

Some of my friends, I’ll never see again.

It’s so empty in the hallways.

They put up warning signs and locked up the buildings.

You can only get your mail until 2 p.m.

There’s no one in the hallways.

Sometimes, above my head, I hear a dresser drawer opening –

how comforting!

Like an echo from

the top of the well.

Sometimes I get to dinner, and

There are people still here.

We stay far apart, but

how nice.

Is everyone alive out there?

Is anyone alive?

Must be – someone has to have

buried me in all these emails,

right?

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