Thursday, July 16, 2020

JUST STAY CALM

a cento-haibun
by Ed Gold




It’s going to be just fine. We are doing an incredible job. Everything is under control. It’s just one guy coming in from China. We do have a plan, and we think it will be handled very well. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done! I said it would go away, and it will go away. Everything is totally under control. Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. Stock market starting to look very good to me! The flu is worse! Just stay calm, it will go away. One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear. We have handled it very well. I’m choosing not to wear a mask. It’s only a recommendation; it’s voluntary. So when we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that, as in some respects, a good thing because it means our testing is much better. Really, it’s a badge of honor. Some areas we thought may be gone, but they flared up, and we’re putting out the flames or the fires. This is the democrats’ new hoax! 99 out of 100 cases are totally harmless. It’s going to be just fine. We are doing an incredible job.
Just stay calm. One day,
It’ll be a miracle:
he will disappear.

Ed Gold has a chapbook, Owl, and poems in the Ekphrastic Review, TheNewVerse.News, Passager, Think, New York Quarterly, Kakalak, Window Cat Press, Kansas Quarterly, Cyclamens and Swords, Poet Lore, Rat’s Ass Review, Homonym Journal, and many others. For 15 years, he taught at the University of Maryland and now is a writer, editor, and writing trainer for various government agencies and large corporations. For the Poetry Society of South Carolina, he runs the Skylark contest for high school poets. Ed lives in Charleston with his wife, Amy Robinson, and their terrier, Edie.