As promiscuous as the first buds of spring
\nnudging into each other for attention
\nwas the first droplet on our side of
\nthe Atlantic.<\/p>\n
And, so quickly it captured its prey,
\nwe knew not which direction to turn
\nwithout becoming its next victim.<\/p>\n
To know who was the spectre of Death
\nrequired only looking into the bathroom mirror
\nas we galvanized ourselves against others’
\nunassigned entities and unheeded precautions.<\/p>\n
We sat or stood in front of monitors, glazed over
\nby free-associating lies and partially curated truths
\nuntil none of us were certain of anything
\nother than critical thinking and common sense
\nwere on the same extinction list as those
\ndeemed
\nat-risk.<\/p>\n
The young took pleasure in eating the elderly,
\nor would if the “flu” induced cannibalism.
\nThe hapless of all ages crowded, unconcerned,
\ninto Prince Prospero’s red-bloomed party until laws were made
\nto nudge them back like the de facto lab rats they
\nfailed to see their behavior marked them. <\/p>\n
Weeks became months, and the place from where
\nour slow-motion disaster arrived has almost settled itself
\nand ebbed from daily news, other than the ceaseless barking
\nof candidates who want to throw us off the scent
\nof two-point-four million infections.<\/p>\n
2.4 million.<\/p>\n
Does that sound like this just went away on its own?<\/p>\n
Remember the good old days?
\nThis would be March, when
\nmost of the country still had jobs.
\nRemember the “curve?”<\/p>\n
When’s the last time anyone, anywhere,
\nsaid anything about “flattening the curve?”<\/p>\n
Adieu, Curve. We hardly got to see you before
\nyou became a mountain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1136],"tags":[3685],"class_list":["post-66916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts","tag-flattenthecurve"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67372,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66916\/revisions\/67372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}