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‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house

Everyone was online, using a touch screen or mouse

The stockings were dirty and flung on the stairs

Laundry had been halted, because really, who cares?

The children pretended to do schoolwork from bed

While visions of having a life, danced in their head 

Mom was exhausted and dad cursed the wifi

One more minute together and someone might die

While sleeping all hours and waking only to feast

The whole goddamn world starting smelling of yeast!

Banana bread, track pants, and nights of Schitt’s Creek 

The clatter and noise from this new virus was bleak

Trapped in our houses, apartments, and parents’ places

The world watched breathless as each day grew in cases

Hope left the building and Sad locked the doors

The smell of despair floated up through the floors

The virus, it spread, across borders and classes

Because no one would listen and just sit on their asses

The moon kept on shining, over green grass and snow

A light in the darkness that cast a soft glow

Then what did my weary eyes see, but a man!

Who dropped off a sweet package, then left in a van

With stripes and white doors and slush on his wheels

He called me by name and it gave me the feels

Oh magical driver, who comes from far and away

I ask you, “Your delivery job, how much does it pay?” 

I watched him take off under the light of my telly

My sadness, it shook me, like a bowl full of jelly

Each country, each city and every backwater town

Looked to find peace in the midst of lockdown

Families and colleagues chat all day by zoom

While naked toddlers and spouses slip into the room

Bookshelves, flowers, and fine art hang for each call

Rude posters, wicker lamps, and other crap, sit in the hall

Toilet paper, handshakes, and hugging grandma a dream

Our heartbreak and loneliness played out in a meme

Monday, Tuesday, Whatever day, who gives a shit

Unemployment, disengagement, the economy unfit

With nothing to do but do nothing inside

People made podcasts and went shopping curbside

Anti-maskers still gather and share their venomous drool

In the end, all they do is keep children from school

With binge-watching sores on both of my cheeks

Hours blend into days and days into weeks

I surrender my brain for a spell on Tik Tok 

And wonder if tomorrow I might go for a walk?

With me in my yoga pants and all of us in masks

I had just stepped out the door, to do what you might ask?

When from the corner of my eye, in the plain light of day

Stood a group of frontline workers, out earning their pay

For those that can’t breathe or need to be fed

There are angels among us, who heal in our stead

Their heroics oft hidden, by walls and workplaces

PPE and exhaustion distorting their faces 

When themed dinners got boring and game nights obscene

Doctors and geniuses pursued a vaccine

All of the planning, and all of the work

It’s to keep us all safe, including the jerks

So I picked up the stockings and sat down on a stair

Thoughts of my family turned into a prayer 

Then I heard it, so soft, but clear as a bell

Humanity whispering “2020, go to hell”!

Hope knocked on the window, and Reason opened the latch

Love poured in from the vents, as a new day was hatched

The orange-faced buffoon in the south got his due

Now political landscapes smell much less like poo

We can do this, we got this, one day at a time

Taking care of ourselves is no longer a crime

A new way of living, more mindful and slow

Quiet nights, less consumerism, and pans full of dough

I’ll remember these times for the changes they brought

Not for the battles we lost, but for the way that we fought

So I in my jammies, all zoomed out and trite

Dragged my laundry upstairs and sat down to write.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

By Carol Sloan

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