Calling relatives during the pandemic

How we are she said
like plant lice
on the stem of a creamy rose. She smiles
into the video camera and her white hair
like a halo. Pink aphids, horrifying,
confused in the small 3D
of the stem’s curve, she says, all of us
even the president
the queen
a green louse 
can be smeared
with a finger smear, she shows
her finger’s underside,
styletes in line
with two clawed tarsi
limited in what it can see, for it
might fall, wingless, or
be devoured
like we all might
in the next 45 minutes
if atom bombs are made
to fall, she said, or if tainted droplets
blow into our chest. Her great
arms make her fingers
rain from the air
above her breasts down 
to the white plastic chair
she sits on and her fingers rain past
photos she glued
to the wall
near the fridge
of sea daffodils, and of asphodels,
irises, a cyclamen in the rock
and almond
blooms, as they keep
on blooming and her fingers
with her blood
bloom as she illustrates
the fall and although she
is scared of her own death
her fingers are steady,
calmly in her wingless chair,
she smiles, she keeps knowing
the milk of the rose.