The Only Way To Fight The Plague Is Decency
(an American elegy)
Once upon a time there was a hoax,
A broadcast-to-the-hilt ruse, a puerile
Leader’s adamant refusal to rally arms
Against a colossal viral dragon,
A winter hustler’s fiat that bloomed,
One titanic, coffin-heavy April,
Into a real-as-your-mother’s-dying-hand
Pandemic: national melee, featuring
Stock-selling senators,
Runaway test-kits,
Mask-begging nurses,
And jerrybuilt morgues,
A storm-haired Lear’s flaccid sideshow,
A charlatan’s heedless, snake-oil matinee
(Hail the flimflamming functionary
And his red-handed band of … ),
Land where all the poisonous hierarchies
Arrived to poison us once more —
Where raucous pettiness equaled rollcalling,
Brisk-as-business Death,
Equaled my crushed kingdom
For a ventilator!
* * * * *