By Dee Allen
PROMPT—During Covid-19 ...
I fear sudden weakness
I fear an assault
Worse than a hate crime,
Worse than the occult
By some assailant
Much smaller than me
Since this disaster began,
Insecurity--
It could travel through nostrils,
Pass my wet tongue,
Plummet down the trachea
And flood my lungs
With so much phlegm,
This brother couldn't breathe,
Hacking with persistent cough--
No goddamn reprieve
Body burning like an open flame
Scalding my head--
The systemic immunity
Breakdown I dread--
This infection is real
I'm feeling its impact
Earth brings out her dead
Majority Native and Black
Filling hospitals and freezer trucks
Caused by bacteriological hex
Somewhere down the line
I might become next
To be one with the darkness
Against my mortal will
I've no wish to find out
If a mystery can kill
And it has
Made early graves and much more
Some other sensation
Stirs within my core
Call it resilience--
You probably felt it, too--
These days, I'm a busy man.
I've got too much living to do.
African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active on the creative writing & Spoken Word tips since the early 1990s. Author of 5 books [Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater and Skeletal Black, all from POOR Press, and his newest from Conviction 2 Change Publishing, Elohi Unitsi] and 26 anthology appearances [including Your Golden Sun Still Shines, Rise, Extreme, The Land Lives Forever, Civil Liberties United and the newest from Local Gems Press, Trees In A Garden Of Ashes] under his figurative belt so far.
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