It’s Day Eleven in West Virginia

But, in Florida, day one:

folks leaving the last party,

returning home to wash

sand from their sun-

diminished heads. 

They are like the legend

of soldiers still fighting

World War II from isolation

of their island jungle:

don’t realize they’ve lost,

carried defeat like shame

too long. On the news,

I hear that Florida’s governor

exempted religious services

from the prohibition

on public gatherings.

Goddamn it, Florida,

why do you always 

fuck things up

like that one kid in class

who forgets to bring a pencil

to the most important test

of his young life? 

My dad will go, 

despite his age, diabetes, 

recent cancer treatment.

He was as stubborn as Florida

long before he moved there.

Several states away,

I’m hunched over a notebook,

which has been my church,

attempting to figure out

how to say I won’t

see my father alive again.