Neil Shepard

We inch closer to lockdown’s end, inch toward a line where the new normal resides, wherever that is, as it moves through days of light and shadow, infections rise or abate, rise or abate, and the line’s re-drawn. Lilacs don’t know this, their purple clusters shamelessly luxurious, more adventurous for having no gardener tend them as they overhang the gate and disperse their petals into the street, where joggers stop, take off their masks, and sniff memories so fresh, so remote, they might as well come from another life.