Long Covid

My arms weigh 25 pounds each.

I stroll in slow motion, 

Feet sticking to the floor.

My heart races,100 beats per minute

While I make a cup of tea.

I take deep breaths as my

Oxygen is only 87 percent

According to my oximeter.

The plague that cursed me

Retreated, left my body

Battered.

 Prednisone revs up my brain,

Reducing inflammation

My doctor promises.

Today I will design and sew quilt blocks,

Mend pants, write two poems

I slept with last night.

Make a peach cobbler

With delectable fresh peaches

Ripening in a paper sack.

Shop for spaghetti ingredients

And salad for dinner,

Clean off dust I noticed

Yesterday on lamp shades

And refrigerator top.

And wash all the blankets.

Instead, I sit at my computer

Screaming with

5000 unanswered emails

And can’t decide

Which to answer, which to delete,

What is important?

It tells me I am paying too much

For car insurance.

That my Amazon account will be

Deleted unless I give my

Credit card number again.

That I owe $597.13 to an unknown

Company, NJ Solutions.

Emails from friends and family wait.

I open them, can’t concentrate

Long enough to finish, or I forget to

Press send.

Covid fog, this must be it.

I try to make peach cobbler.

The peaches smell luscious as I slice.

I follow the recipe, but soon forget

What’s in the bowl, what still needs to go in.

And then I need to nap, an hour, two, three?

Debilitating fatigue overwhelms

Prednisone power,

And I sleep.

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