Who Did It?
Who engineered the Corona Virus?
Could it be the Chinese,
stealthy in their desire to torment
Donald Trump?
But they wouldn’t infect millions of their own citizens.
Would they?
Was it the toilet paper syndicates,
masters of short-term thinking,
probing the hidden places
selfishly willing to flush away
any iota
of safety?
I bet it was the eco-terrorists!
Prophets of overpopulation
savagely paralyzing
the virus of humanity,
benevolently bringing back
crystal clear waters,
soaring birds,
vibrant skies.
Maybe it was the dog-cat alliance,
the yelping canine hordes
abandoned
day after day after day after day,
yearning for the people they love,
frantic
to be petted and cooed at.
The dogs supplied the pack-animal heart
The cats the stealth.
Perhaps
we did this to ourselves,
an existential death wish.
More likely we are merely
sloppy, selfish, short-sighted.
--Ethan Goffman
Ethan Goffman’s first volume of poetry, Words for Things Left Unsaid, is due in 2020 from Kelsay Books. Ethan is co-founder of It Takes a Community, which brings poetry to Montgomery College students and local residents. He is founder and producer of the Poetry & Planet podcast on EarthTalk.org.
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