Virtual Easter

Our brother is thinner and bearded, as if recently emerged 
from weeks at sea. Our eldest sister wears bunny ears. I still think ‘our’,
though I’m alone, facing my family: our screens and names intervene; 
laughter echoes, lagging. Then silence. An unfamiliar cat perches 
on Jocelyn’s shoulder. Her kids put her in outer space, upside down. 
I’m marooned in an absence of chairs, want to go back to missing 
people quietly. Our parents ask about dinner, then how I plan to move 
home. It’s a novel genre of interview: am I careful enough to live 
with them? Computers render my voice young and uncertain. I try
to thank them for the disinfectant wipes, but Luke’s announcing 
an antibody test and mock-bragging about his essential worker status. 
I can’t share a Not Surprised Look with Alanah, so we debrief 
by text while Vanessa coordinates Facetime playdates for the cousins 
and Jocelyn explains how she photographs the kids’ mouths for ‘visits’ 
to the orthodontist. Mom attends conferences; Dad tries happy hour. 
Three of us lecture and Vanessa reads The Little Engine That Could. 
Now everything happens nowhere and possibly forever. I can’t listen 
by looking out a window. Panic is boring. There’s no roomful of dishes,
no lurking in the periphery, nothing to rinse or do but pretend not to be 
separate, not to be subject to small green signal lights. 

Ceridwen Hall is a poet and educator from Ohio. She is the author of a chapbook, Automotive (Finishing Line Press). Her work has appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Pembroke Magazine, Tar River Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, and other journals. You can find her at www.ceridwenhall.com.