Pain de mie

(until our household moved to France when I was eight

strangely wildly deeply childishly just HATED bread

learned there, in many yeasty ways, how wrong that was)

Pandaemonium

(world may not, cannot be as brutal as it now sounds to me

every noise today, doorbell, car horn, bird cry, all so terrible

so sudden shocking and so vile)

Panda me

(can't believe it, to bed each empty night with sad stuffed toy

joke gift to my love in hospital, not sure which surgery

he loved it, then — who's laughing now?)

Pain of me

(well yes there's that — of course it hurts, no surprise, keeps hurting

no one to care, masked faces, angry, sullen, blankly lurching off

no way to reconnect to world where care still lives — or, used to live?)

Pan flautist

(keeps tootling his look-at-me, nauseous naked need

to boast, then whinge, then boast again

no truth, no love, that endless hungry squeal of selfy self)

Pantomime

(above my bamboo mask my eyes

eyes working hard, must do it all alone, smile, frown, fend off, shriek

so—thank you?prayer?—on goes the kohl each morn in early light)

Pangolin

(weak lone creature, slightly freakish, hunted haunted brutalized

like me no choice, hates wet market, unwilling vector

like me, no one knows just what — all of what — it truly weirdly is)

Pantywaist

(antique diss of dainty cowards, brims with modern unacceptabilities

yet feels so apt today, wan cowering inside despite a sweet spring sun

stupid panties round my waist, my awful stupid fear of everything)

Pandemic

(whole year now! bleak litany of months, April unto April

every dark and hateful vision I had back then, fantastic fears

each one of them now here, come true — each one surpassed)