Dave Bonta mixes short prose paragraphs with haiku-like verses to capture a strange, isolated time. The references to reopening restaurants and social distancing suggest the pandemic, though the poem never names it. The speaker misses bars and restaurants, even though he rarely went, and notes that longing is about what we can't have. So he walks around the mountain instead, listening to a hermit thrush and noticing more than he can hear.
The mood drifts between restlessness, mild irritation, and unease. Flies and maggots bring disgust, while the mannequins at restaurant tables and the dream of skeletons who have lost their grins feel eerie and sad. Even the dancing dead seem disoriented.
The final haiku pulls these threads together. Tadpoles crowded in a small pond become "tadpool," a pun that turns them into a pool of swimmers who are anything but distanced. Calling them cannibals adds dark humor, a wry look at how nature's crowding contrasts with human separation.