In side-eye vision she is vivid somehow

Not sure why, a fairly random teen,

dark clad, long haired, slouching near a wall

Awaiting something, longing for something,

or so it seems, a sexy perma-scowl

on purple painted lips as she intently scans

back, and forth, and back again

And then . . . I'm past her, down the path,

bound for research books on hold for me

Awaiting me inside the library,

this outing's longed-for (sort of) goal

The thought of books supplants the girl right quick —

her strange intensity, darkly sulky looks

all evanesce, as such things do,

from fickle daytime consciousness

But she's still there when I retrace my steps,

a little later, weighed down now with weighty tomes

And now she is quite changed, because, now, not alone

Two other girls are with her, cuddled close,

all laughing, boisterous, talking loud and smoking hard

And, then, the girl I noticed first begins to . . . cough!

to cough and cough, and cough, and very loudly cough

Her friends keep up their smoky giggle gossip undeterred

as sulky coughing girl bends at tight-clad waist,

arches, hawks up some gloppy gunk,

and, with sustained and noisy effort, spit-pukes it out

to splatter wetly on the walkway — where we all stand or walk,

of course, must stand or walk, pause or pass on by.

At once, unshaken by her lurid eructations, she straightens up

tosses back her thick black hair, takes one more hefty drag

restarts her loudly lively chat — raucous laughs from all three, then

before I round the corner, while I and all the others still can see, hear,

even smell, perhaps, what's going down, the strange routine

—deep drag, cough, retch, phlegm rising slow then spat aground—

hits instant replay, repeats itself once more

Her two friends still stand cozy-close, no distance and no masks

Unmoved by olden etiquette, new Covid, standard 'you-ok?' concerns

We passers-by, some masked, some not, pass by in both directions,

perhaps a little quicker, perhaps surprised by strangeness,

surprised to so abruptly find ourselves

inside this vomitorium while being just

outside that library — but, if so, silently, discreetly, singly surprised

Stranger still, perhaps, such crudely fluent moistness flaunted now?!?

Right now, when any suspect symptom (but they're all suspect)

any symptom, then, manifesting out, in public —

slight croakiness, say, small sniff, quick nervous clearing of a throat—

however firmly muffled under omnipresent mask, is scary, shaming

gains strangers' glares/stares/swears—demands & gets contrition

Was what we watched outside the book-hoard a performance?

Goldilocks' return, a new folktale, meant statement of some kind?

Some dirty daylit theatre, maybe, cunninglycdesigned

to dramatize disdain for all the dreary rules —

manners, hygiene, self control, strictures (social or pandemic) —

all boldly spewed, expelled and trampled down by one teen girl?

Or maybe not, theatrics really not in play at all

perhaps that bit a mere projection

beamed out by burdened book-crazed viewer,

disgusted but engaged, appalled but . . . what?

What? not so much concerned, though that somewhat,

but . . . feeling something other, something strange —

a bite of envy, maybe? no clear sense of why

just hurry by