The Real Virus Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

We've been marching
to the tune of a virus
that might have jumped off

the tail of an animal,
got choked by the smoke
of curiosity, as it landed
under a microscope.

The animal might have
been a cloned bull
turned into a panting savage

nested under a mighty
tree branch often
prodded by weevils and worms.

Bull and worm and weevil
carried the virus,

its ticking loud sign
a trumpeted guffaw
and a drummed cough,

both pumping out
a midget dressed
in a falcon's wings.

The dancing sprite escaped
with ocean waves
on the deck of an ocean liner

that bounced from coast
to coast, the dude sneezing
and coughing like gusts
driven by sea waves.

(ii)

Mountainous months
after axing ourselves
from each other,
mocking at a nod and a bow
and pocketing pointed fingers,


a stampede's boom
shakes ground and air
and a croaky adenoidal voice

warns of a cloud
that dives from mouth to air
with a spiraling virus
causing another wall-building fight.

The cloud wraps you
in a psychic bowl, whose walls
only break, when you peek
at sun or moon or twinkling star.

(iii)

But the real virus carries
the horns of a moose,
hides under the umbrella
of flipped-out tree branches.

It hibernates behind itself
and tells you to fence
in and barricade
yourself with a mask and gloves.

It bawls and barks
at you with a hammer
to break off
the thick slab of prejudice,

a bell ringing at you
not only to carry a knee
and a neck brace
and an elbow brace, but to pull out

the roots of a wild tree,
from which handcuffs are picked
for a man lost in the mist

of a cloudy pointing finger
before the tree beams and blooms
with riper fruits,
as hurricane and typhoon sail low.