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