All of us can relate to something in this week’s poem, Gretchen Berg’s “Social Distancing.” I love this poem’s specificity and details, its candor, and its humor. It may well inspire all of us to make our own lists of things we never thought we’d miss.

Berg is a performance artist/educator and writer. She is the lead teaching artist for Portland arts education partnership Side X Side, works in rural Maine schools through the Local Stories Project and often teaches performance courses at Bates College. She was lucky enough to spend time at Monson Arts this summer writing poetry.

Social Distancing

By Gretchen Berg

I miss
dreading social events,
cash and eavesdropping.

I long for
bad cologne, pink eye,
making nasty asides
and registering the car.

I want to
whisper, interrupt,
and overshare. Tell
tourists that Fore Street restaurant
is on Fore Street.

I yearn for
body odor, root canals,
switching from zone defense
to one on one,
Jehovah’s Witnesses,
CPR and library fines.

I miss
circling the block,
splinters, unsolicited advice,
broken escalators,
complaining about
something else,
And you.

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Social Distancing,” copyright © 2020 by Gretchen Berg, appears by permission of the author.

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