We Prepare For Our First Guests Post COVID

By Anna Papadopoulos

We empty the familiar ceramic bowls
where orphaned items have collected.
Toss the pencil with the broken tip
in the trash, its life
a casualty of our lethargy.
The Easter M&Ms also don’t make it.

We haven’t performed this dance
in a while. Cleansed our palates
with the matching silverware
or invited the silly wine decanter to join us.

I remove the Post-It note from the fridge,
the one you stuck on my laptop those early pandemic days:
The dog pooped on the stairs and I stepped in it.
The same poop I later stepped on.
I slip the note into my pocket
for safekeeping.

Anna Papadopoulos adores New York City’s gritty beaches and littered streets and shares her home in Staten Island, NY with her husband, three children, a poodle, a Siberian cat and her mother’s neglected Lenox collection.

This poem earmarks the transition of reopening our homes to friends and family as a result of the availability of the vaccine. There’s bittersweet emotion that comes with reopening our homes and re-engaging with the world.