Private Parts

We have blinders on. All we dare expose are our eyes.

Our faces are covered with new underwear.

Our noses and mouths have  become our hidden parts.

Our senses of smell and taste are in danger of disappearing, of becoming almost elicit.

We are covering them, hiding them.

They have become our new private parts. Our old private parts are beyond our reach now— forgotten— dim sensations. 

Now our mouths, our lips are hidden. Our nostrils must not be exposed. The tender linings of our cheeks too personal, too secret even to ourselves.

Have we tasted too much? Have we been too hungry, overly eager in our smelling fields of clover, noticing the aroma of another— being drawn to it, wanting to capture it and shove it down eagerly into our gaping memory banks. 

Have we rubbed up against each other, chafing our skin, leaving indelible marks— stains that have weakened us. 

Have we been too close? 

Yesterday. I pulled my mask down in order to smell the exotic oil wafting from a diffuser— bare—enticing on the sidewalk. I bent close— my naked nostril daring to breath in the particles. 

It felt intimate. It felt illegal.

Our eyes blink and shift when we pass each other on the street— stepping further apart.  Is that six feet? Not sure.  I'll hold my breath just in case, but make eye contact in a way that says— it's not you I'm avoiding. It's not your essence. You are still a worthy human. I just need to protect myself… and protect you. See? I’m protecting you too, from a horrible death, from the torture of breath stopped in your chest, from a weight too great to bear.  And under other circumstances, I would get to know you and see that you're a fine person, capable of so much more than sidewalk avoidance… so much more than this furtive glance,  my breath held just in case, my lips bandaged, my nostrils swaddled, my life boiled down to a gummy residue.

Written on January 28, 2021