Long-COVID (Seattle, 2022)
two & a half years
into the pandemic,
wildfire smoke
thickens the air,
every year
growing dark
& more westward,
our breathing
shorter & hardened.
capital consumes
the quality of sky,
& day after day,
more of us enter the fog —
heavy as metal —
our bodies turned hot
in the crucible,
chests fluttering,
airways tightening.
you are so young & healthy,
the doctors tell me.
your tests have all come back normal.
you have so much ahead of you.
i sit in front of them,
gasping for air.
By Terra Oliveira
Biography:
Terra Oliveira is a multidisciplinary writer and visual artist from the San Francisco Bay Area, and the founding editor of Recenter Press. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Bamboo Ridge Press, Protean Magazine, Paperbark Magazine, and elsewhere, and they were the Artist-in-Residence at the Schoolhouse at Mutianyu at the Great Wall in March 2017. Their ancestral lineages come from the Azores, the Hawaiian islands, Southern China, and throughout Eurasia. You can find them managing a bookstore in the North Bay, and on Instagram @terraoliveira_.