Slowly, I have socially stepped out.
The pandemic has receded.
For I am in older adulthood.
My health more threatened by this ever-changing virus. 

I function with my health always in mind now.
Weighing the risks and benefits of extending my social range.
Exposure….like my friend who went to a wedding.
Came home had Covid, said: ‘I knew I shouldn’t have gone to the Meet & Greet’.
Infected by the recent variant, GI symptoms, and she already suffers from IBS.

Omicron did me in April 2022.
When another friend I briefly saw-didn’t know she was infected.
And infected me. 

Paxlovid, rebound, Fauci, the Bidens, me and my cohorts.
Twenty-four days I was sick not knowing if I was getting better.
An illness like no other…over one million died in our country alone.

Traumatized anew by an enemy I couldn’t see.
How can I be safe?  I mask-limited to my tasks of daily life.
Then I take a leap to see a Broadway show in the night.
I plan everything carefully; before, during and after.

The streets are filled… people busily moving, carrying shopping bags TJ Max not the
vivid scenes I remember of toilet paper being carried by everyone.

In the theater only a few of us are masked described as ‘elderly’ ‘older adult’.
The theater is very old like us.

The red theater curtain gives me a stability in time.
While bright red and white lights blow puffs of air into the theater.
Medallions are in the walls, and there is an azul blue ceiling indented and circular.
Almost feeling like a speakeasy not unbecoming for this show.

It is eerily dark and quiet when I leave the theater before the show ends.
Again the street is filled with people.  I feel I am invisibly passing through them.
When I look up to see large windows that reveal unmasked couples dancing behind them.
I feel as if I am a selkie who has taken human form leaving my home to walk on the land.