Dave Bonta mixes short diary-like prose with haiku to capture a strange stretch of pandemic life. In the first section, the speaker briefly loses his sense of smell, and the first thing to return is the scent of soil, which feels out of place in January. That sets off a childhood memory of the "January Thaw," a brief false spring. The haiku that follows, with hair clippings lying in a winter garden, sits neatly beside that idea of something warm and living showing up in the wrong season.
The second section turns to worry. Rachel returns to work after self-quarantine, and nobody can say whether her illness was a cold or Covid. The speaker calls this "the hell of it": not knowing whether you're infectious or immune. The closing haiku asks a winter moon, "where's your shadow," a small image of something present yet missing its usual companion. The mood is quiet, wry and uneasy, full of small surprises and unanswered questions.