-A message to our new friend
Lean-to shanty roadside snack bar
Butcher house of unusual tastes
From those wet works you crawled
Traded false hopes for troubled wheezing
The gagging sneezing, dry heaving of the lungs
Weeping eyes, and at times a final rest
Fear abounding is nothing novel
Crackdown, shakedown of the poorer classes
Rooms as coffins dimly lit and jam-packed
In these turgid times your labors lively spread
Gnawing panic at the edge of dreams surreal
Congealed fate for exhausted medical staff
Only the best schools for orphaned children
Singing “catch me if you can”
Then slyly, by human tricks, our borders crossed
Caring is sharing, or so they say
Partying as in 1999: some new world ending
Fatalism rebranded nihilism and doubt
Might be influenza- until my lungs inhale
Then kneejerk retraction of prior inaction
“It’s just a politicized hoax”
By fits and starts you, our latest pet breeding
By expedience of exhale, sneeze, and cough
Locked in, shut down, our wanderings diminished
Shrinky Dink as rapidly as retirement accounts
But you, you at carnival prevail and prance
Exponentially your web expands, your toll demands
Our ticket to ride