P.S. Perkins is a DC author, poet, performing artist, theatrical consultant and entrepreneur who is, she says, “passionate about WORD POWER.”
She serves as a Human Communication and Performing Arts/Edutainment Consultant through her firm, the Human Communication Institute, and has formed and directed several Oral Interpretation/Poetry/Prose Arts Performing troupes and programs at various schools and communities throughout the country. She also coordinates the Poetic Voice corner that appears in Southwest Voice: The People’s Paper, for which she invites submissions at psp@hci-global.com.
Her poem below speaks to many of us these days as we try to navigate our neighborhoods—and our lives—masked in protective gear.
Making I Contact
There is nothing but my EYES left to see…
Covered head to toe in my
Medicinal burka…
Is this what she feels like?
Protected? Guarded? Conspicuous?
Only revealing the seeing part of me…
So now I only use my I to connect…
Eyeing others
Eyeing me from a distance…6 feet or more…
Searching to know,
Are you death approaching my door?
Should I run?
Should I be scared?
As we eye each other
Revealing the dread of walking into each other’s space
Avoiding the connections of face to face.
Listening for a cough …
Dreading a sneeze ….
“Cover your mouth, won’t you please! “
Avoiding human contact that could bring me to my knees.
But still I walk silently through the lonely streets seeking contact I can greet, with a wave or a nod
Some recognition of my BE-ing…
because the last thing I want to do,
The very last thing I want to do, is return home to isolation
Where there is no recognition of who I BE.
So, I wander the neighborhood hoping
Wanting,
Needing,
to make I contact.
If you would like to have your poem considered for publication, please send it to klyon@literaryhillbookfest.org. (There is no remuneration.)
