As promiscuous as the first buds of spring
nudging into each other for attention
was the first droplet on our side of
the Atlantic.

And, so quickly it captured its prey,
we knew not which direction to turn
without becoming its next victim.

To know who was the spectre of Death
required only looking into the bathroom mirror
as we galvanized ourselves against others’
unassigned entities and unheeded precautions.

We sat or stood in front of monitors, glazed over
by free-associating lies and partially curated truths
until none of us were certain of anything
other than critical thinking and common sense
were on the same extinction list as those
deemed
at-risk.

The young took pleasure in eating the elderly,
or would if the “flu” induced cannibalism.
The hapless of all ages crowded, unconcerned,
into Prince Prospero’s red-bloomed party until laws were made
to nudge them back like the de facto lab rats they
failed to see their behavior marked them.

Weeks became months, and the place from where
our slow-motion disaster arrived has almost settled itself
and ebbed from daily news, other than the ceaseless barking
of candidates who want to throw us off the scent
of two-point-four million infections.

2.4 million.

Does that sound like this just went away on its own?

Remember the good old days?
This would be March, when
most of the country still had jobs.
Remember the “curve?”

When’s the last time anyone, anywhere,
said anything about “flattening the curve?”

Adieu, Curve. We hardly got to see you before
you became a mountain.