“26 Letters Refuse to Whisper” by Lynne Jensen Lampe with Artwork by Carrie Wilmarth
Above: “UNTITLED,” 2020. Oil on Wood Panel, 9 x 12″
As for saying goodbye, we don’t know how.
Shoulder to shoulder we keep on walking.
—Anna Akhmatova
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As for saying goodbye, I know how
but don’t want to surrender to these
changed lives & cautious moments. COVID-19,
death-o-matic, that’s what I call you. A period jabbed into the heart of a sentence.
Each day I look out my window & see failings instead of sunlight.
Feed the fire, you say.
Girdle the tree.
Hear me: Gentle words conceal
injustice. Beg the dead, remember the caught, prepare with spirit.
Janet and Mollie are both dead, yet I
keep on, certain of false shame, new abuse.
Life, fucked up.
Mistaken, scared,
nothing to blame & everything to undo.
Out of hope, yet I
praise each hand used to end fear.
Quell my fear.
Rebuke the distressing of America.
So many dead people.
The pope reads obits, aborts his homily.
Verse born vagrant, untold, unhandsome—
what is my prayer? Cure
xenophobia, more contagious than any virus.
Yes, America, awaken to respect. Count and tend our identities.
Zero hour is now.
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Lynne Jensen Lampe lives in Columbia, Missouri, where she edits books and academic journals. Her poems can be found in Isthmus (online), Small Orange, San Pedro River Review, and elsewhere. Much of her writing explores her mother’s experiences with mental illness and ways that society equates sanity with conformity. Follow her on Twitter @LJensenLampe
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Carrie Wilmarth is a painter currently based in New York. Follow her on Instagram @discostomp
