This Time Is Personal

I don't make a habit of posting personal photos. Poetry in People is, after all, meant to be a project about the moments of strangers; people we often don't really see. But times are different of late. As people are physically distancing in a legitimately fearful attempt to save lives, we skitter away from the presence strangers. The poetry around me now is held in the people in my household alone. 

And so this photo...

I quite honestly don't know what to read from this scene, a conflict that underscores how torturedly out of control I feel these days. My teenage son still in bed, even as the sun bears down brightly on him through the thick curtain, the morning already growing late. Is this simply a moment of typical teenager? Wouldn't I read it that way at any other time? Wouldn't I see the beautiful laze of that time of life when growing is simply exhausting if it were any other moment than the one we are in now? But now I can't help but see this same scene and fear it to be infused with darker things -- depression? futility? The poetry in this photo is an expression of the poetry I me today. This is a scene of my greatest fears and my strongest love.