Date Night in the Time of Global Pandemic

hailey spencer

Standing in line at the drive-in,
Elizabeth inches forward, waiting
for her burger. I clutch my greasy bag:
fries and a chocolate shake.
The mask my mother stitched me
clings to the margins of my ears.

Through my glasses’ built-up steam
is a man. White hair, mostly bald
fiddling with his paper respirator,
the type Elizabeth and I might have worn
last April, digging the backyard
to lay out lines of bricks.

(We built a firepit together;
recycled brick, a tiny hill of sand
and our bare fingers, sinking in the dirt
I ripped out the landscaping fabric.
She lifted up and let spill the bags of sand.
I laid the bricks.)

This April, the man stands
on a chalk-drawn line, six feet away,
His eyes smile.
He tells us that this is the first time
he’s gone outside in nine weeks,
He orders five large burgers and six fries.

Elizabeth’s food is slid through a plastic window.
The sky begins a careful drip drip drip.
Our sandals slip. We climb the little hill
outside the library’s zip-tied doors,
slide our masks into a canvas bag
and eat our fries under a drizzling sky.

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Hailey Spencer

Hailey Spencer is a Seattle-based poet with a BA in English from Seattle University. She is the creator of three webseries with the independent production company Arsenic Martini Productions. Her poetry has been published in multiple journals and anthologies. She loves fairy tales and has a tattoo of Baba Yaga’s house on her calf.

Sofie Harsha