In the lasting shadows

of fallen towers

and bombs blasting holes

in our global souls

but yet quite before

the plague

came to our door,

while we waxed patriotic,

swathed in red and in blue,

star-spangled fervor,

and voted our leaders

as if nothing new

had changed in the background,

had detoured our tomorrows,

saw no hint of the deaths

the vaccines, and the sorrows,

and there in that lull,

between explosive bouts,

 

SeJohnson, 9.23

the horizon unseen

our tomorrows planned out,

in that valley–you know,

the one shadowed with death–

was a decade-deep chasm

of blood, funerals, and fears,

where we interred our innocence,

on viral, terrorist biers.