Tom Sexton is the author of Cummiskey Alley: New and Selected Lowell Poems, which is available at loompress.com. He is a former Poet Laureate of Alaska and a member of the Lowell High School Hall of Fame. 

Crossing a Frozen Lagoon on a Sunday Morning

by Tom Sexton

“800 new virus

cases, 680

yesterday, 20,

perhaps more,

fatalities.”

Heavy winter fog.

A ghostly figure

in a yellow

jacket

skating circles

around an island

is all I can see.

He or

she (not they)

appears

briefly like

a figure carved

from oak

on a carousel

from long ago.

I linger, call, “Hello.”