Stuck in a bottle by Chuka Susan Chesney

of Covid 19
Can’t venture out
Stuff delivered to me

Mask round my face like
a storage device

I’m quicksand in the quarantine
of cushiony space

For tonight’s Bolognese
I require red wine
but Safeway won’t deliver
unless I sign a form

Can’t sign the form
to prove I’m over 21
Too scared to signature beside
an Instacart guy

I’ll call the firemen to fetch some Pinot Noir
deliver it to me
before 3:30
Twelve minutes go by
Thirteen minutes go by

I’m here at the store
my hero tells me in a text

Do you want red and white
for when you need some next?
I know you like to braise a pot
of mushroom…Okay

they don’t have Pino Noir but
they do sell Cabernet
and a couple dead soldiers of
blanc de blancs chablis

I can tote these to your porch
wear my grenadine bandana

Oops, I’m getting buzzed
there's smoke in the cantina

Chuka Susan Chesney is an artist and a poet. Her poems, art, and/or flash fiction have been published in Peacock Journal, Inklette, New England Review, Compose, Picaroon, and Lummox. Chesney’s paintings and collages have been in exhibitions and galleries across the United States.