It is not just during days of pandemic
that I wish to be a bird.

The longing flutters in my stomach
after each meal.

There are seasons every hundred years
or so, when you can’t tell someone

coughing into their fist from another
bowed in prayer—a view from top

might help.
I write to people I never thought I’d

ever again, and wait like pigeons do
on the roof for a palm to sprinkle

seed. One reply reads, Believe
in the Universe. How can I,

in something I don’t understand?
Believe in yourself then, and I wonder

why the same advice again.
Maybe these are weeks of repetition:

of drinking several cups of ginger tea,
of gargling warm saltwater a lot,

where nurses pause for brief yoga
during drive-thru testing, and

even Downey Jr. wants to return
as Ironman. A theory says bats are not

to be blamed, but a vial from a lab,
dropped in the wild-animal market,

from where the virus spread its wings,
causing quarantine corn-cakes to be baked,

quotes like I promise you, I was here,
published. Not sure of the hands it has been

through, I have cut off my newspaper
supply. Hum to me then in a foreign language

whose bones are hollow & pinions beat,
whose alphabet does not breathe.

Sudanshu Chopra did not provide a bio.