Age of Quarantine

“In the last two thousand years mankind has covered a long way from God being tortured and dying on the government order to save mankind to a guy lying under the order of his government at home on the couch to save both himself and mankind.”

Bohemian Hermit

Another day of quarantine
Empty streets.
And fear

through one’s eyes

and mouth and ears.

People’ve gone home

to save one another

from each other

through the eyes

and mouths and ears.

For this disease

did not know

or didn’t have the memo

that one was supposed

to stay in ICUs

only for a day or two,

and not for weeks two or three

in this brave new world of ours

where all’s been put—on speed dial

for all the fast men

and even faster women

meant to live for one hundred years,

except of course

for all the suicides

and those dying of hunger

and all the seasonal dead

because of the flu

or all those killed en mass

in the wars of choice

for a retrospective error

or some little lie—

Even the local drug dealers

got and are wearing now

gloves and masks

on their eyes

and mouths and ears

in the age where your face

and fingerprints

ought to certify

your life and presence

to the state and business.

Every second of your time+,

just as two no ones

are walking now across the bridge

of sullen, silent Brooklyn—

One of them—essential,

but the other isn’t.

For no one’s eyes

or mouth or ears.