Hugs

COVID restrictions are lifted, but the yearning to touch our loved ones, to forgive and cherish, remains.

We break the rules
Right there on the street
In front of God and 
All those crazy neighbors who 
will pick up their cell phones
And call the police.

Videos will be posted
To shame our defiance.
Parents have been arrested
For playing with their children
In the park. 

How dare we risk their lives!

So here we stand in the driveway
Emboldened by our month-long isolation
Her eyes moisten. 
Give me a hug, she cries
Arms stretched toward me
Her voice sounds like when she was three
And I was her goddess, her heroine, her life.

I slide my scarf from my face
Its silky fabric hand-dyed
By an artist at the cowboy festival.
She showed me how to tie
The buckaroo knot.
That memory softens the drill
Of her accusations into my breast
Months ago on my birthday.

Her arms reach a bit further
The look in her eyes 
An ache that tells her story
A fiancé in quarantine
A father-in-law dead of a heart 
Too weak to sustain his generosity
Jobs dangling on the end 
Of the funding string.
Wedding plans unraveling.
It's been a testy autumn.

Damn the rules I need a hug.

I press against her
Wrapping her in forgiveness.
My own need melting ice
Anger and fear.

Her arms tighten around my shoulders
Our womanly bodies fit together 
Like a jigsaw
The epiphany of how quickly 
Loss sweeps us away
Surges between us
Her embrace unlike any other I'd felt.
Not since she was three.