Listen:
if you keep trying,
one of these weeks
you’ll find the right words,
you’ll find the right deeds,
to convince people
that they need
to take care of each other.
It might even be next week,
if you keep trying,
so keep trying,
please, my friend, keep trying.
When I hear my students
refer to the 1990s
as “the late 1900s,”
I sigh and think to myself:
“it doesn’t feel like that
was so long ago.”
And
when I hear my students
refer to 2019
as when the pandemic began
I sigh and think to myself:
“it feels like that
was so long ago.”
I know, my cautious friend,
that at this point
you are probably tired
of wearing a mask,
but remember, my friend,
it is better to wear
a plague barrier,
than it is to become
a plague bearer.
*
The 318th week of plague poems…
https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2026/04/17/plague-poems-the-three-hundred-and-eighteenth-week/
Plague Poems – The Three-Hundred-and-Eighteenth Week
As we waited for the elevator my work friend told me “I have a really bad feeling about this week,” and though I wanted to joke “hey, stop stealing my lines,” instead I just…
I know you are overwhelmed
by all the bad news of late,
but, nevertheless,
you should be aware
that the CDC is warning
about an increase in infections
of a drug-resistant infection
that can cause severe diarrhea,
which unfortunately
is just more truly shitty news.
As we waited
by the copy machine
my colleague said
she was glad it was Friday
as every day this week
has felt like a Monday,
and in response
another colleague stated
that since 2019
each and every single day
has felt like a Monday,
and in response
I just adjusted my mask.
My aunt, the doctor,
told me a new joke.
She asked:
Do you know why
they haven’t named
any of the Covid variants
with the abbreviation AI?
I said I did not know.
So she replied:
Because AI
is already the name
of a plague on humanity.
And then neither of us laughed.
A review notes
“Post-COVID-19 condition
encompasses
persistent symptoms
including headache,
cognitive impairment,
fatigue,
sleep disturbances,
dysautonomia,
pain and psychiatric disorders,”
so while these are
post-COVID conditions,
we are not
a post-COVID society.
When I asked
how her semester is going
the professor told me
she’s used to
students getting sick
with “senioritis”
around this time of the year,
but she’s not used
to getting so much
official documentation
from the student health center
around this time of the year.
Between suspicious sneezes
a colleague assured me
that it was just allergies.
Between wet coughs
another colleague assured me
it was just a cold.
And while I appreciated
their assurances, I decided
not to sit between them.
I keep hearing people say
that this pandemic
broke our society,
that this pandemic
profoundly broke our society,
and while that may be
I cannot help but think
that what this pandemic
has truly done to our society
is reveal
just how profoundly broken
it already was.
