- cmsouaid
Biography of a Virus: Prelude
Everyone’s naked, including the doctors.
Everyone’s a cat staring from their window.
The earth was always headed in this direction.
I’ll admit. I was not thinking
of the Spanish Flu when I saw
last fall
amid the shrunken leaves
a pigeon on the pavement,
royal plumage
glazed with death.
I was not thinking “omen.”
Sun palpitated in rings above my head.
Like the Romantics I saw Art,
Idea, Form.
Centred the bird in my camera lens,
gridlines framing the point of its heart
where stillness dwelt
as an absolute. Time was short.
The trains were running on schedule underground.
I had work to do in the crosshairs of town
that seemed more important.
