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Writers’ Weir: Learning to Hold Our Breaths

Published 4:00 am Thursday, June 4, 2020

By Daniel Branch

Writers’ Weir: Learning to Hold Our Breaths
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Writers’ Weir: Learning to Hold Our Breaths
This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, yellow, emerging from the surface of cells, pink, cultured in the lab. (NIAID-RML via AP)

Covid, covid, covid, corvus, don’t

touch a face, even your own.

I last shook hands in March

then washed with harsh soap

Covid, covid, covid, corvus, fear

the breath of others, even Ruah.

We enter stores masked like a thief

to rob the virus, not the owner.

Covid, covid, covid, corvus, accept

two meters as the new social distance,

stop roosting like happy crows in bars

and ball parks, isolate in place,

But don’t confuse the virus with its host

or after covid we will never close the distance.

— Daniel Branch

• The Capital City Weekly accepts submissions of poetry, fiction and nonfiction for Writers’ Weir. To submit a piece for consideration, email us at editor@juneauempire.com.

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