The old hippie once told me
when he first saw
the picture of the Earth
taken by Apollo 17
he wept upon realizing
everyone was in that picture.
So I asked if he had seen
the picture of the Earth
taken by Artemis II
and through tears he said
everyone is in that picture.
The intake form
at the doctor’s office
included the question
“are you feeling
down, depressed, or hopeless?”
which seemed to me
like a rather rude way of asking
“are you paying attention
to the state of the world?”
*
Plague poems week 316…
As I look at the news
I keep seeing stories
about how a handful of humans
are on their way
to orbit around
a cold and lifeless rock.
And as I look at the news
I keep seeing stories
about how a handful of humans
are on their way
to making this planet
a hot and lifeless rock.
My friend
who studies viruses
says we are in
an epidemiological crisis.
My friend
who studies computers
says we are in
an epistemological crisis.
So I asked
my friend
who studies history
which it is
and after a moment
she said: yes.
My aunt, the doctor,
told me a new joke.
She asked:
Did you hear
that the CDC
is pausing testing
for rabies, smallpox,
and monkeypox?
And when I asked
for the punchline
she just replied:
No, this is real
it’s not an April Fool’s joke.
And then neither of us laughed.
