Assume
everything is contaminated
assume every surface
you touch
holds an invisible illness
you can spread it
without knowing
you are asymptomatic
but everyone
turns away
they can tell
that fear mutates
as quickly as a virus
the earth
whispered in your ear
long ago
“I will find you
I will find a way
to tell you when I’ve had
too much”
so you spend your days
looking for your own
antibodies
you search for them
in the soil
where you know
you will someday return
you sanitize your thoughts
you don’t say anything to anyone
but you’ve had a sore throat
for fourteen days
the earth is having trouble breathing
there are no more ventilators
Connie Post served as Poet Laureate of Livermore, California (2005 to 2009). Her work has appeared in Calyx, One, River Styx, Slipstream, Spoon River Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Slippery Elm, The Pedestal Magazine, and Verse Daily. Her Awards include the 2018 Liakoura Award the 2016 Crab Creek Review Poetry Award and the Caesura award. Her first full length Book, Floodwater, won the Lyrebird Award. Her second full length book, Prime Meridian, was released January 3, 2020; both published by Glass Lyre Press.
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