A Poem For The Plague Year (copyright 2020 MWalker)
I reach out
To some girl in Riyadh
While the TV in my
Sister's room
Keeps warning "Isolate"
I try reading Defoe
Imaging there might be
Comfort and insights
And he reads like
A Census of the Dead
And I give him up quickly
Strange noises in the night now
Stray dogs as prophets
The girl in Riyadh has gone silent
Under the TVs loop
Isolate Isolate Isolate
She is somewhere in tomorrow afternoon
Somewhere closer
Defoe is as dead as his book
Defoe is as dead as Marilyn Monroe
Or some anonymous Dough Boy
Or...
The furnance kicks on as usual
And the prophets darken
Bark it will not always be so
My sister sleeping in the next room coughs
And I wonder
And cannot sleep at all...