by Joel Savishinsky
It is hard to predict where
the next contagion will erupt,
or how, or when.
Most of us do not even understand
what is already understood
about the plagues of the past.
Few recall, or ever know, for instance,
that the “Spanish flu” of 1918 began
at an American army base in Kansas.
But surely, at the next
outbreak of outrage,
the cause for the spread of whatever
may well be laid at the feet of a Chinese lab,
an Asian market, or an African village…
anywhere but here…
unless, of course,
our leaders can blame
someone like Dr. Fauci.
Joel Savishinsky, an anthropologist and gerontologist, is the author most recently of Our Aching Bones, Our Breaking Hearts: Poems on Aging (The Poetry Box, 2023). His earlier work, The Ends of Time: Life and Work in A Nursing Home, and Breaking the Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America, both won the Gerontological Society of America’s annual book prize. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, his other writings have appeared in Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Passager, and The New York Times. He lives in Seattle, trying to raise hell and five grandchildren.
