Mona's Raven It might be that Mona Lee was losing her mind. Astride her bolster, looking out the French windows, not able to fly away, her gaze turned inward; she wondered what sanity really was, and if she could keep it while people were dying, others working so hard, while she was ordered to be old and lazy. Netflix and Amazon were failing to divert. Spring beauty was everywhere outside. The green of it never failed to raise a wisp of happiness, so she took it in, breathed it in to feel gratitude. Wkwak, wkwak, a great raven, so much larger than any she had ever seen swept the proscenium of her view, whacking his wings on trees, back and forth, with wild purpose of some kind. The raven, the raven, the word raven and the computer that was the brain spewed up speeches, standing before directors being Lady Macbeth. She laughed at herself the actor, the woman, the lover, and all the speeches that still speak in our heads from five centuries ago, from lips that will be as cold as Yorik's soon. Remembering, not remembering she made her own: The raven himself is hoarse and croaking the news of What? Duncan is not coming under my entitlements I will not be queen. Gone thick night, where morning steals the thoughts of hell Is there any purpose left? Sexed or no sex? Kill or be killed? Nature gives no hoot or holler for woman's milk or gall or homeless squalor Mother crows are feeding, Raven the great and sleek is diverting a cat without a collar and hungry seagulls from the coast. DAY TWO
MONA LEE felt it was wrong of her yesterday to wish corona virus death on CEOs and passive income gluttons. Sort of. "Humans aren't much," she said to Gus, blocking his view of the television. "We are fragile." "I wonder if the pot stores are open. Essential to life, " Gus said. The line at the supermarket stretched around the block again. Gus was wandering about in his underwear having an anxiety attack. Only Grayboy the cat slept like a baby. Mona mulled: Humans are one bad drought, flood or crop away from extinction. Like a snow leopard, one vole, mole or goat away from non-being. A no-go for the species. The earth has to keep doing us a favor, though, and when it does, we store our grains and freeze our deer and sheep, and then, boy howdy do we go to town, building things, imagining everything, writing our way into massive libraries and constructing shining cities. "Can't somebody shut him up," Gus screamed. "Turn him off", Mona yelled back. "I can't do it," he admitted. "That's his strength! Turn him off." We “seem” like something, Mona said out loud. Humans. Like a great piece of work. Like we might have a creator even greater than we are. We look so terribly hard and smart for this architect of the fish/foul and beast/human. What we find is one void, and beyond some lumps of rock, more void, and some whirlpools so black no light can escape. In what we find, we discover our ending. It will be cold and black and full of metals. We soldier on. Like a herd of nomads, we destroy a camp sight, cut down its trees, dirty the river beside it, and move on. There must be another oasis. "That's a nasty question," the president said. "And you are fake." "I wish he would get the virus," Mona said.
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April 2020
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Marlea Evans
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