Windfall

flour butter   maple-sugar 
because   it reminds us  of home 
red-sawed leaves   on the latticed trees 

can I spend $5 on Madden   yes 
because hide     my darkness 
hide     my fear           flour 

sugar butter   because 
the co-op   is putting out rolls 
of toilet paper in batches   of two 

and three in neat   baker’s dozens 
to keep   the supply chain 
from breaking down in one   person’s 

panicked windfall   because 
moving   a class online is 
not like writing a love   letter 

but that’s the best   analogy 
I’ve heard  in terms of 
it helps a   little 

as I think of them   as I think 
of you   hiding my darkness 
hiding my fear   before 

refreshing my screen   because
love letters   are timeless so 
maybe they’ll   make sense 

looking back from   what 
we now   look forward to 
hoping to get   through

ξ

Lisa Olstein is the author of PAIN STUDIES (Bellevue Literary Press 2020), a book-length lyric essay, and four collections of poetry, most recently LATE EMPIRE (Copper Canyon Press 2017). A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, she teaches in the New Writers Project and Michener Center for Writers MFA programs at the University of Texas at Austin.