by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons
It's déjà vu again. The Omicron—
That Covid rookie—dumps us all back at
Square one. We social-distance, masks full on,
Dictated to by rules ... A caveat:
Enactments are not uniformly tough—
Jabs may not be compulsory. If they
Are not, because persuasion's not enough,
Vax uptake is too low to save the day ...
Unshakeable aversion to the vax
And being glad that others got their shots
Goes hand in hand with dodging paying tax
And taking, all the same, from public pots.
It long precedes the age of me and you—
No wonder there's a sense of déjà vu!
Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Daily Mail, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, The New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, The Washington Post, and WestWard Quarterly.