Three Things You Need To Get Through a Plague
Bryana Joy
“...a strong sense of oneself, a confidence in being alone, a hinterland…”
—Tim Stanley, The Telegraph, March 23, 2020
You need three things to get through a plague and
toilet paper is none of them. Experts are saying this too.
You need rituals: one incomparable cantata in your ears
at all times; raspberry, because it means merry only to you;
blue, if that’s your thing. You should go through every day
wearing sky and wave from that ocean you especially love.
Yes, I do know the heart of us each is a small black coal
needing the touch of another’s red finger to glow on
but I want you to wake up in the morning—tomorrow,
next week, or when I’ve been gone from you ten years—
sure of a shining something that you and no other can do,
dear in doing a something that needs you to do it.
You need a wide place in blossom behind your eyes,
a country deeper than coast. It must be a spot you’d be
happy to home in for one infinity if you have to—two
at the most. There should be nightingales there and
roses, and all the things needful for life. You must not
leave it, no matter how many stands of snowdrops
bubble and wilt on the hill, the thin years of silence
running into each other. I am coming as fast as I can.
Bryana Joy is a writer, poet, and painter who works full-time sending illustrated snail mail letters all over the world. She has lived in Turkey, East Texas, and England, and currently resides in the Lehigh Valley in Eastern Pennsylvania. Her poetry has appeared in an assortment of literary journals, and is forthcoming in Bracken, DIALOGIST, The Dillydoun Review, and others. She has a thing for thunderstorms, loose-leaf tea, green countrysides, and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Find her online at bryanajoy.com.