Pandemic: Ritual, Breath, and Repetition with a Difference

Pandemic: Ritual, Breath

By Joanne Mallari

I.

In church choir, I learn how to take

a singer’s breath: hold one hand against

your lower belly, and feel it move outward

as you inhale. Don’t let your shoulders rise.

Imagine your breath is a laser beam

when it departs from your mouth.

See yourself landing on the note—

not reaching up. Your vocal folds, vibrating

freely, will produce a smooth descant.

After Sunday Mass, I ask my mom

what the point of religion is. She says

humanity needs a shepherd to keep going.

I think our shepherd is auto-pilot,

the failsafe mechanism that ensures

we continue to revolve on our axis.

I accept the things I cannot change

by going through the motions: stand, sit,

kneel. Angel of God, my guardian dear…

…to whom God’s love commits me here.

My dad teaches me this prayer

when I am six years old, and he is laid off

for the first time. The holes in his schedule

bring details into focus. He notices the way

his wife squints, because her prescription

is no longer current. He discovers a note

addressed to the tooth fairy, and when

he tickles his daughter, he finds the gap

in her front teeth.

II.

I become more aware of my breath:

virion; droplet; transmission; shed.

I imagine my breath sailing through

the house, bumping up against the bedroom

door that belongs to my mother, who is over

the age of sixty and living with a leaky

heart valve. We speak to one another

from opposite ends of the common area.

I phone her when we want to talk at length.

One day I emerge from my bedroom

with a bra cupping my face. I laugh with her

for the first time, my breath contained.

I accept the things I cannot change

by following new rituals.

My partner and I wear matching masks.

We sanitize the surfaces we touch.

Grocery days mean assembly lines:

bring bags into the hall; wipe items;

place them on a clean counter; repeat

until all items are off the floor.

On Sundays, I call my dad to help him

file for unemployment. The weekly claims

give us a reason to share the details

of our lives. I learn he makes playlists

to quiet his mind at night, and I tell him

about a new meditation I’m trying—

“Leaves on a Stream.” Together

we imagine raindrops the size of buttons

somersaulting in air before diving,

headfirst, into the calm.

Repetition with a Difference

By Joanne Mallari

…in a digital culture we should not be worrying so much about whether the computer will become like us, but whether we will become like it. –Maryanne Wolf

Working remotely means more

screen time. I turn up the volume

to hear email, text, voicemail, call.

On Zoom, we start with: How are you?

Feeling healthy today? Protocol

comes down the chain of command,

and I, on the receiving end, must

be thorough, must be precise,

because the wrong info spreads faster

than any virus. We end with: I hope

you go outside and get some sun.

Working remotely means playing

a game of telephone, and I pray not

to be the source of failed speech acts.

I am human. I pray for patience.

I pray to be able to keep searching

inside a song. I pray to be less like

my phone and more like the body

of a poem, where words repeat

with a difference. Twenty-one days

into the shutdown, I make a cup of tea—

with sugar this time—to soften the taste

of earl grey, though I cannot sugarcoat

my reasons for cancelling a flight to see

my grandmother in the Philippines.

I start a letter with: Dear Lola, I hope

you are doing all right in these times.

I’ve said the same thing too many times

for these words to ring fresh anymore.

On a new sheet of paper, I tell her

about the walks I’ve started taking.

I write about a road that leads to no outlet

and how, beyond the dead end, the desert

is greener than I thought. Sagebrush

coats the hills like blue and gray

watercolors streaking across a page.

P.S. I walk the same route in the opposite

direction just to feel the change.

As a writer, I consider how images and ideas transform when we place them in different contexts. The pandemic brought certain parts of my routine into hyper-focus, and because poetry draws our attention to small details, I felt compelled to explore this sense of heightened awareness within the body of a poem. While the first piece depicts ritual and breath before and during COVID-19, the second poem considers the opportunities and constraints of communication during this time of social distancing.

Joanne Mallari is a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her debut poetry chapbook, Daughter Tongue, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in November 2020.

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