Alone, Now and Forever
More than twelve hundred days — but who’s counting —
trapped in my home (still, at least I have one)
by privileged selfishness, corporate
greed, government neglect. I dare not roam
amongst the infected who will cough in
faces and spit at those whose masks remind
them that they place a higher value on
entertainment and paltry pleasures than
on the lives of me and others who are
immunocompromised, disabled, old,
poor. They never tested vaccines on us.
No matter, the jabs stop working after
two to six months. Or when new variants
mutate from oligarchic policies
creating cauldrons perfect for brewing
more lethal forms of SARS and other types
of respiratory infections, as
well as poxes, fungi, bacteria
that’s resistant to antibiotics.
Four shots from three different companies
but I still can’t risk exposure. Not a
matter of if. Just how long until death
comes, how painful the organ destruction,
traumatic the stroke, devastating the
brain fog, debilitating the fatigue.
The media speak in past tense of a
virus that still kills hundreds every
day and disables thousands by the week.
Forty months since I ate at restaurants.
Or went to the senior center where I
once took fitness classes, used weight machines.
To the barber for a competent cut.
Since I spent an evening with friends or
attended concerts, plays, or poetry
readings; Pride and other festivities.
I even stopped pushing events on my
calendar off until next year when there
might be less peril. Because safer will
never come for me I just delete them.
