Of all pandemics I’ve survived,
you are my favorite,
teaching me what it means to be alive.
Okay, I admit it,
you’re the only one I’ve lived through,
keeping me
in my basement, (thankfully not alone), typing
through Poetry Month,
working from home, ordering groceries online –
how much more privileged could I
possibly be?
I feel guilty, knowing real victims can’t breathe,
dying as families grieve,
the slow stain of pain and discontent spreading,
healthy people protesting,
quarantine or not, face masks or not, health or wealth?
And I here,
have nothing more than my fear,
so minor
compared to the virus. All I can do
is pray for us,
this country, our sick U.S.
