Today I am posting another poem from The Sleep Machine.
Breathless
Could it be the new coronavirus?
Or just the old common cold?
Should I get tested or resist
The reckless screams of data collectors?
After all, chances are it is just hayfever
And my body is not about to collapse
In the terror of the cytokine storm.
Even the reigning doctors cannot name
The symptoms that ail me most –
This interminable house arrest,
Exile from the dying city,
White gowns, black masks,
Smothered and breathless,
Shackled by a five k chain,
Condemned to meet only avatars
While the last post plays,
In the forbidden distance,
And priests prepare the rites.
They chant:
“Not this, not this.”
Image source: Olena Grin