March 16, 2020
Pan-
ic
demic
demonium
dora’s box broken
open on the world
like an egg hit real nice,
got anxiety on the rise, a plague
of what-
if?
now?
next?
the-fuck’s-with-the-toilet-paper?
People. It’s a virus.
It’s a war:
We’ve got science; it’s got
neither predictability nor form,
just pure thirst for 7.8 billion
warm bodies and the silence
of a ghostly assassin, crossing
borders like a viral hashtag;
crashing Wall Street
like bureaucratic incompetence.
Feeling confident? Stay home anyway,
if you can, and practice this sentence:
I will stay calm
and carry on washing
my hands, buying
only what I need,
and silencing racism.
Now’s the time to let the professionals speak,
to take action toward stasis. Feeling restless?
Now’s the time for art
to spread wider than Corona,
to lift the masses
like social distancing raises all of our chances
of survival. Welcome to the fight:
Isolate.
Create.
Share.
Reciprocate those likes
and please, let’s keep each other safe.