The sun blazes on summer solstice
and there’s a new moon asking me,
woman, are you empty or full?
happy or sad? satisfied or filled with dukkha,
the Buddhist word that signals how humans
live, maybe for a whole lifetime, unwilling
to accept what is—it’s dukkha I am feeling
and it means my glass is muddied
with viral angst, just from being alive,
just from having survived years of happiness.
--June 2020