MUSING ON THE BONES

of those who went
before me
to discover what
they make of these,
our uncertain times
finds me sniffing
around on ground
more suitable for balm
than banalities.
For all I know Socrates
would more lament
not getting a handjob
than gathering in the town square
to discuss death; Bird
would worry more
about his uptown connection
than playing at a filled Onyx Club;
Al Capone & Billy the Kid
had bigger problems
than hand sanitizers;
& Shakespeare would spend days
hung-up trying to rhyme coronavirus.

Those microscopic worms of malice
do not get fat on history; neither
do they care about sin
or saintliness. They enjoy
all our fares that still has a pulse.
They even lack the judgement
of the crematoriums which belched
Jewish ash into the faces of angels;
or the Poplar trees
where black bodies blew, to & fro,
in the malignant south.

No, I must search
closer to home
to uncover the stench
circling around the bare bulb
of etiology: ma & pa.
If anyone knows
how this migrant, unwanted,
unloved, repulsive visitor
vomited itself across
our country's magical mosaic
it would be them:
"It's your fault," they would say
in unison. "Somehow, someway,
you brought it on yourself...
& deserve to suffer now...And
you can take that to the bank--
if you can find one that's open."

And that, as they say,
is that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2020