I clean off the chair
it is my quarantine
in a sea of the discarded
notebooks full of old notes
a knapsack with a broken zipper
an orphaned cord
I sit back on this upholstered island
the piles of stuff surround me like sharks
that cannot get me
it’s been so long
since I’ve started a novel
I’m almost shy
did I used to do it
with my legs crossed
did I start with tea
or make it a few pages in
but the novel remembers
the chair too
they take over
in that way lovers sometimes do
when you wonder
how they knew exactly
what to do.