It isn’t personal – we can’t go there.
With Omicron in surge, I have to stay
away from you. I can’t risk sharing air,
lest I convey infection that will prey
on kids I see too young to get the shot.
It isn’t that I view you as a threat,
but I don’t know who you abut, who not,
or what your webs of intercourse abet.

If we were to establish you’ve been in
and isolated, limited to few,
and so we met, avoiding touching skin,
and then I caught and spread this vile flu,
you’d worry that you vectored it to me.
So let’s postpone that possibility.