Peter Shaheen
On the Seventh Day of Self Isolation
It appears we are not God,
yet.
Our mortality: a finitude—
at least for now.
Cast from the heavens
Fallenangels.
northsoutheastorwest—
which direction totravel toorfrom?
The employed mind is baffled
business at hand rinsed clean.
The idled spirit caged
humbled by mortality.
The finitude of fleeting time—
Mayflies all short lived. Restinpeace.
Stacks of empty carcasses
Piled high under sickly lights.
Like Oedipus, it is in our blindness
that we finally see.
—Submitted on
Peter Shaheen is the co-editor, with Anne Ruggles Gere, of Making American Literatures in High School and College (National Council of Teachers, 2001). His poems have appeared in Rue Scribe and The Write Launch. Shaheen is an educator in Michigan.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.