Our Other Virus

Image by Luisella Planeta Leoni from Pixabay

This virus is impervious to shielding by a mask,
This virus can’t be cleansed by washing hands,
No length of social distancing impairs its nasty path,
No disinfectant blunts its foul demands.

It’s more than poison droplets floating formless in the air,
It’s more than toxic germs upon a knob,
It rips through filtered indoor ventilation everywhere,
Goes undetected on a nasal swab.

This virus that besets us most, this curse that chokes our days,
This noxious scourge, immune from quarantine,
Cannot be palliated with a therapeutic aid,
Cannot be warded off with a vaccine.

Our nation stands infected: Racist hatred, venal rule,
A coldly autocratic wrecking bar,
Embodied as an orange man, decrepit, vile, and cruel,
He’s not the bug, he’s just its avatar.