Reads like a contradiction. Being able to go outside by the pool is a luxury that most do not have, especially those confined to small one or two bedroom apartments, unknowing whether their neighbors next door across the hall have the virus or not.

When I go outside on my little patio between the garage and the house, I can either smell the dust from the Sahara or the blooming jasmine from the garage I cannot see. Watch a little dramas taking place like that wasp, is one of the benefits of being outside where one can hear the birds and watch the plants change their seasonal garb.

Still, I can breathe. When I can't, I may have the virus.

Ron

great visuals here

Loved your imagery here. I think most of us feel the same way, and I would like to say it's going to get better, but unfortunately I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. Just hang in there.

I sense similar emotions of hope in your words, articulated so well by Odin. Good poets tell us of the dread in now, better ones remind us of the life we yearn for. When the cleansing rains come and wash away the dread, I will be there with you in spirit to celebrate.

With so much wanting to close in on those of us "conscious, it's no wonder that a surge of emotions would find its purpose in a poem of this stature. Both a personal pleading and a universal cry for beyond the long lost wake-up call. We are, as your wordsmithing points out, suffocating and hoping, trusting, that there is an answer and resolution to this, the Apocolypse of mind and heart being perpetrated by a twisted personage whose affliction must become a new entry into the DMS 5. Desperate images and words that allow us to sigh, and yet be given hope. Kudos.