Marc Swan

Marc Swan lives in coastal Maine. Poems recently published in Gargoyle, Crannóg, Floyd County Moonshine, Speckled Trout Review, among others. His fifth collection, all it would take, was published in 2020 by tall-lighthouse (UK), and Talking With the Dead About Life Today is forthcoming from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2023. His collection, today can take your breath away, was the first title published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions.

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Beyond the Pale

It’s been a tough time
keeping the sanity button on
with social distancing, masks,
isolation, uncertainty, home tests
not FDA approved. Two years into it
you’d think there’d be a better plan.

On a sunny late fall day
we take a road trip from Maine
to Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Mask up at local venues, chat with
folks at Beaverbrook Art Gallery, local
shopkeepers, get to know our hosts,
cook every night in the Air B&B.

First morning home
she wakes up to a drippy nose,
raspy throat, chills, lung congestion,
body aches, throat narrows, breathing
labored. I open the government gift box—
fifteen minutes for her pale line to arrive.

My line, pale or otherwise, on hold—
I wait and dream from the guest room.