"Martha Stewart Asks" by Dr. Suzanne Falck-Yi

[Five Years later, is this poem still relevant? Is it still with us?]

Martha Stewart asks, online,
Is it safe to leave butter out on the counter?
We're in the midst of a pandemic.
More Americans are dying every day
Than died on 9/11.
More people are dying this year
Than in the Vietnam War, but
 In the midst of the pandemic,
 We might pause and ask,
 Was it actually the Vietnam War, or just a conflict?
 Does the difference in names matter
 When we're in the midst of trauma?
If tanks roll and soldiers shoot,
Isn't it a war?

Is Trump just questioning an election
Or staging a coup?

Will students show up to the final exam
Or lie in bed with Covid-19, unable to focus?
 How many of them will pass their courses, and
 Go on to lead a normal life?
 What is the lie in the life they will lead
 After they were teens in the midst of a pandemic?

Will any make it through unscathed?
Will the vaccine work?
Will little kids learn how to judge a person
By the eyes because they're learning not
To look at a whole face?
 Early on, a little girl stuck out her tongue at me
 When she got scared, seeing me in a mask at the grocery store.
 Do masks still scare her?

When lewd customers ask a waitress to take off her mask
So they can tell how much to tip her,
 Will she reveal her naked face to them
 To keep the money coming in?
Will her business sink under the weight
Of no customers for six months?
Will the virus have long-lasting effects
On our national psyche,
On our bodies,
As the virus lingers in our system
For years?

How long can Dr. Fauci keep up the strength
To keep saying that things will get worse before they get better?

And Martha Stewart asks,
Is it ok to leave butter out on the counter?

I hope the answer is yes.

But maybe it's no.

             
English professor and Honors director Dr. Suzanne Falck-Yi leans much more toward prose reader than poetry writer, so she’s pleased as punch to be publishing her second Waldorf Lit Review poem in two years.