You hear a lot about checking friends
these days. I called my friend Gordon.
He’s been staying in place for years
usually drinking beer, writing poems.

He was sleeping. Seems this
Covid thing isn’t a crisis for
an introvert. He gets to spend
more time with his best friend.

Dreams are great way to research
ideas for poems. Many are in
color. He ignores the black and
white ones—too dull, like a
bad 1930’s movie. His routine
is simple: sleep, wake up, drink
a beer, jot ideas in his journal, sleep.

He grumbled,
“Hey, I go to the laundromat once a week.”

Robert Halleck lives in Del Mar, California. He is a member of San Diego’s Not Dead Yet Poets. His poems have appeared in The San Diego Poetry Annual, The St. Ann’s Review, The Paterson Literary Review and a number of other fine journals.