Ways to Say I Love You During a Pandemic Lockdown

by Hollie Dugas

Our bodies have become dangerous in this apartment— 

two grenades kissing. And let this be known:  

a lover’s quarrel does not belong in plagues  

but that won’t stop bones from bursting open like cattails,  

brains from bubbling out. I move my beating flesh room

to room with you, exchanging our wicked love, searching  

for something small within you to hold again, careful  

not to pull a pin, plaster our chests onto empty walls.  

Instead of risking mayhem today, I will smoke cigarettes,  

pop the cork on champagne. We are only sounds in the dark.  

Wherever you go, the drum of fingers trail. Wherever I go,  

a match crackles—a little fire for you to stomp out. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hollie Dugas lives in Louisiana. Her work has been selected to be included in Barrow Street, Reed Magazine, Crab Creek Review, Pembroke, Salamander, Poet Lore, Watershed Review, Whiskey Island, Chiron Review, Louisiana Literature, and CALYX. Hollie has been a finalist twice for the Peseroff Prize at Breakwater Review, Greg Grummer Poetry Prize at Phoebe, Fugue’s Annual Contest, and has received Honorable Mention in Broad River Review.  Additionally, “A Woman’s Confession #5,162” was selected as the winner of Western Humanities Review Mountain West Writers’ Contest (2017). She is currently a member on the editorial board for Off the Coast. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Steven McCrystal lives in a town called Bo’ness in Scotland. He started painting in Art Therapy and found the creative outlet very beneficial. It helped him come to terms with the traumas he’d been through and enabled him to look at his troubles in a different light.  

McCrystal enjoys painting abstract art, but his repertoire also consists of emotive work and elements of his bipolar experiences. He has found that there is nothing better than feeling an emotional connection to the art he produces and hopes viewers of his art find that same connection.