Covid Stars
You have beautiful eyes.
Yep, you. Even you.
I am grateful for
The pandemic and it’s masks
And endless zoom meetings.
Because for two years
It was okay, necessary even
To look, unabashed
Into eyes of friends, family
And strangers.
I’d turn off the sound
sometimes the chat and
just take in those brilliant
blues, soulful browns and
thousand shaded greens.
Stars twinkling in
an ether universe
In a sky turned blackest black.
Peter Cooke is a poet who lives in the Willammette Valley, Oregon with his wife and son. He works at a middle school library, where he also facilitates an after school poetry club for kids. His poems have been published in Skrews Syndication, Black Bear Review and Northwest Passage, as well as having won several first and second place prizes at the very prestigious Benton County Fair.