It’s Saturday afternoon about two months into social distancing and quarantine and I find it hard to daydream. I can cite the numbers—70,000+ dead, 30 million+ jobs lost—but we have all become statisticians of the macabre. Let’s talk about something else. In the morning there were snow flurries and now an imitation sun is making false promises:

– those branches are not swaying in cold

– you don’t need a sweater to keep warm

– it is snowing in May and everything is perfectly fine

– the train that rumbled by was full of healthy people doing weekend things

It’s Saturday afternoon. I just read that the virus is mutating, anti-vaxxers are joining other unsavory elements to protest public health measures, the president doesn’t see the need for mass testing but is now getting tested daily—we all know the news isn’t good. Let’s talk about something else. Last night I had a dream. A poet wearing PPE stood in a park crowded with unmasked people; no one heard him over their laughing and their coughing. Elsewhere, nurses stood up to gun-toting, flag-bearing protestors. In the ensuing melee, a mom and dad were shot dead; their son watched the funeral by video chat. Okay, let’s talk about what kind of country that boy will grow up in…