I have no weapons to use against you.
I can’t cut you with my knife.
I can’t shoot you with my gun.
Silent.
Invisible.
Lethal.
I can run. I can hide.
That’s not my style.
It’s not my way.
I could die painfully
denied even a breath of air.
I could escape, too. No one knows.

I can fight a man.
I can fight a bear or a puma.
I don’t know how to fight a virus.
Watchman on the tower,
staring into the darkness,
staring into nothing,
there is nothing to see.
Invisible death.
Invisible death.
People die. I have held their hands
as they breathed their last,
winced at the pain,
gagged on the smell,
felt the pulse on their necks as it stopped –
People die.

The Passover, the Angel of Death –
can we splatter some blood on the door?
Can we make the fell messenger pass by?
Mike died three weeks ago,
my brother in law,
and I didn’t go to the hospital.
I didn’t want to catch it.
They called it “pneumonia” then –
His lungs failed and his kidneys shut down,
and he was gone – just like that.
I liked him. He was someone I could talk to
at those tedious family gatherings.

Pray.
Pray to your gods if you think
they can save you.
I prayed to mine.
He healed my dislocated shoulder
and he bought me a whiskey,
but about the bug, well, it’s yet to be seen.
I could be in heaven or hell someday soon,
or maybe drinking beer with the Vikings
in Valhalla – I’d like to try their beer…
Someday soon someone could be
sweeping up the litter of my life,
putting things in boxes and wondering
how long do we have to keep this shit
before we can throw it away?