During the Pandemic

The factory of tears could not meet demand.  After lentils and rice, butter and flour, people hoarded tears:  small ones that glistened like sunlight on water, extra-large ones pearly as moonstones, even substandard frozen ones which turned cloudy the moment they thawed.  People hid tears in their pantries behind the oatmeal and beans, under mattresses, and in glass jars buried in their backyards, which glowed up through the earth unless the holes were very deep.  We told ourselves we were preparing for winter.  The distance between us grew.  Sorrow was inescapable as sky, but we could bear the smaller ones:  summer had turned to fall; owls and doves called to each other at twilight and again at dawn.  Leaves and feathers swirled through our yards as the November nights grew strangely warm and tricked us into opening our windows.   We turned out our lights.  We turned off our phones.  But the wind carried in the low hum of the thresher in the far field, harvesting corn, and the voices of our neighbors, arguing fiercely.  All night, helpless, we held hands, one calamity away from running clean out of tears.