I wonder how many pizzas would fit. It’s a bad time to have a small freezer. I do toilet paper math, watch spring through the windows, sleep. I dream of ventilators. A yellow bus brings meals instead of children. School is out, but raise a hand if they said you’re essential. Keep it up if you’re paid like you’re not. Now stand up if you live with a bully. How many bruises does a pandemic produce? How many bodies? How many swans in Venetian canals? I keep thinking I’ll wake up, that one day we’ll move around freely. I miss the gym. My feeds are full of home-baked bread. I have never stocked this much food. I wonder how many pizzas would fit. It’s a bad time to have a small freezer.
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Susannah Jordan earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Queens University of Charlotte, where she served as Nonfiction Editorial Assistant for Qu, the school’s literary magazine. Her writing has appeared in detritus,The Drabble, Santa Fe Writers Project, 101 Fiction, Rathalla Review, and 50-Word Stories. Her visual art has appeared in FERAL: A Journal of Poetry & Art, 3Elements Literary Review, Cotton Xenomorph, The Green Light, formercactus, Riggwelter Press, and The Tishman Review.