Flu

The small sad noise within my bed, I found,

Was breath exhaled against the chest's congestion,

Like a baby wailing in the distant darkness;

Baby-wail among the great cetaceans

Playing, flying, gliding the Arctic deeps,

Laying the grids of their geographies,

Suckling their calves upon the wing, and singing.

Some of the predators above, who probe

The heaving waters with their tracking ears,

Think it a sad song. They should know, who are

Of the virus that has made this teardrop earth

The saddest jewel in the galaxy.

And I, back to my sullen sheets, back to

The feral, viral homunculus fastened,

Battening on my back,

And the baby weeping in the my breast.