The gift of the old friend standing over the stove,
making pancakes, in the flesh, not

on the screen, his dear belly revealed to me.
The smell of garlic and his cheek,

beautifully stubbly, rasps against mine.
He shows me his painting, and I see layers of texture

as though I am coming on to magic mushrooms,
but it’s just my eyes that were starved.

I forgot what it was like, sitting in the kitchen of a friend,
what was ordinary now revealed as miraculous.

The sun faintly glimmers through a smoky haze
and the virus mutates, delta to lambda,

while bougainvillea flames orange against the fence,
and abutilon flickers red in the garden.

When I return home, the dog runs to the door
and wriggles her body in rapture, relieved.

She grabs my hand gently and holds it between
her teeth, marking me as a member of her pack.

My skin soaks in her DNA, identical up to
the base pairs of our common ancestor;

remembering the comfort of being mammals
who sleep curled around each other for warmth.