Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night, by Robin Wright

Cafe Terrace at Night, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands) 1888

Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night

March 2020, the newborn, 
COVID-19, kicks and screams,
Look at me! Look at me!
 
My husband and I stay home,
work from home, eat at home.
Restaurants no longer open 
for casting off the day’s stress
with margaritas and enchiladas.
 
Our trip to France cancelled,
no dancing across the cobblestone, 
in Arles. We won’t slide 
into orange chairs pulled out 
from a white table, or beckon friends 
to eat, drink, tell bad jokes. 
 
We sit on the couch, catch
daily statistics, how many 
new cases, how many deaths. Who
are heroes and who are hideous. 
 
New normal: balcony empty, shutters closed. 
Light glows in the windows of tall buildings,
spotted sky embraces. Limbs of a tree border
a building, want to touch it while they still can.
 
Robin Wright

Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in Re-side, Black Bough Poetry, Spank the Carp, Ariel Chart, Young Ravens Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, and others. Her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Panoply, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press.