Poem During the Plague: Poem 30

Matthew A. Hamilton

Matthew A. Hamilton holds an MFA from Fairfield University and a MSLIS from St. John’s University. He is a 6-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His stories and poems have appeared in a variety of national and international journals, including Atticus Review, Coe Magazine, Noctua Review, Burnt Bridge, Boston Literary Magazine, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, Tuck Magazine, Speckled Trout Review, and Projected Letters.  His chapbook, The Land of the Four Rivers, published by Cervena Barva Press, won the 2013 Best Poetry Book from Peace Corps Writers. His second poetry collection, Lips Open and Divine, was published in 2016 by Winter Goose. He and his wife live in Richmond, Virginia. Visit him here.

Escape Room

A closed door,

an unexpected virus,

days watching the news,

we grow tired of counting bodies

heaved inside refrigerator trucks.

Isolated from the familiar,

we play The Forbidden Castle,

riddle cards and clue cards

scattered on the table

like dead soldiers

from some forgotten war,

and we—unfamiliar with battle

and chaos and bodies so deep

and stacked like cord wood—

overlook the change of seasons,

vacations and sports and birthdays

cancelled, but plenty of missed funerals.

Minutes turn into weeks, and we hover

like ghosts in a locked room where we

cannot escape the darkness of cemeteries.