Aubade with Social Distancing

By Uma Menon

Aubade with Social Distancing

(Written in April 2020)

It is early in the morning &
I part the curtains of my bedroom
like hair, bangs clipped against temples.
There is little reason to stir
at this hour, unless we are afraid
of waking beside the sun &
getting too close to its warmth.
I search for clouds in the ceiling,
this textured madness,
but there is nothing boundless here.
I notice that the wall is caving, getting
closer to itself, so I wonder
whether the distance between my tongue &
my elbow says anything about progress.
A neighbor a few houses down
the street calls out the window,
though I don’t understand
what she’s saying. The unmown grass
has pulled our houses farther apart.
I’m forgetting language slowly,
but I think I might’ve just left it
to dry like rice under the sun.
Technically speaking,
we’ve only been distant for a week
or two now, though I don’t remember
the last time we came together.
I might’ve left that memory out
in the sun, too.

Uma Menon is a seventeen-year-old writer from Winter Park, Florida and Princeton University student. Her debut book, Hands for Language, was published by Mawenzi House in 2020. Read more at theumamenon.com.