Sputterpub's Blog

Protection’s in N95’s, but wait!
We need to save those units for the docs.
A surgeon’s mask will decontaminate
the air; they need those, too. Whatever blocks
the spray of droplets seems good strategy.
Last week we didn’t need a mask, but now
we’re told to don by text and on TV –
Bandanna-folding videos show how.

And sure I’ll cover nose and mouth within,
but I’m a free-range breather when I walk.
My scarf will muffle then beneath my chin –
the sidewalk’s mine – I’ll make no neighbors talk.
(Perhaps the mask is meant to nettle us
to stay inside, where comforts settle us.)

Now all I know must shelter in our places,
Or venture out for food and exercising.
Most people are restricting their embraces.
Our introversion may appear surprising
For such a social species, but I wonder:
Of benefits that come with life asunder,
May we include a break from all suspicion
Of missing some event or exhibition?

Abed I lay at 3 a.m., my worries in full swing,
my brain alert, eschewing REM, conjectures wandering.
I fantasized about escape from rampant viral flu,
but soon recalled the awful shape from graphic points of view.
No matter where on earth I’d go, both on the grid and off,
I can’t think of a berth with no raised temperature or cough
(except Tasmania, I hear, remote and unexposed,
now isolated out of fear, all access to it closed).
A flood of sudden nervousness replaces rest for me.
I can’t see past tonight’s newscast. I don’t know how we’ll be.