Jessica Martinez reads "In Unexpected Times"

Processing the pandemic and isolation? Here, poet Jessica Martinez reads her poem "In Unexpected Times" in Hartford, CT, USA. Jessica expresses the jolt many of us felt at the start of the pandemic and the comfort of children during that time. "In Unexpected Times" appears in the international collection of pandemic/isolation poetry Global Insides from Chalant Publishing at chalantpublishing.com; also available on Amazon. Read the poem below.

In Unexpected Times

You didn’t know

how much it meant

to sit on the sofa

together

this afternoon

when you held up your book

begging me to read,

My mind was

elsewhere

trying to glue together

the world

making a meal plan for

however long it takes

while all you wanted

was to wash the glitter off your hands

and sit under my blanket.

Jessica spent most of her life in various European countries before deciding to call a town in Connecticut, USA, her home in 2014. Her poems have found many homes, among them Literary Mama, Mom Egg Review, Selected Texts from the Daniil Pashkoff Prize, and March 2020 – A COVID-19 Anthology by 845 Press. You can reach her at jmartinez.poetry@gmx.com.