Coronavirus – which probably doesn’t infect textiles, like the virus in my poem
I’ve been having a bit of a recovery period post-NaPoWriMo. Well, I did write 31 poems during April; so a little pause is not unreasonable…
Just spotted this story about the new and potentially-pandemical (it’s a word now), coronavirus. The name sounds quite pretty – like a crown, or the corona of the sun. But sadly its symptoms – possible respiratory and kidney failure – are far from pretty. Here’s hoping it does not become any more than the threat of a pandemic.
And while we wait to see if this lurgy heralds the apocalypse-proper: here’s a piece I wrote some time ago about a (possibly) more benign viral pandemic, the source of which is a fusty academic (hey – that rhymed)…
The Edge of Life
Though to others it seemed
he had been quarantined
for some years now
in his collegiate room,
his conjectural womb
and perma-furrowed brow:
something had been transmitted.
He noted it first
with the patches
he had fitted
to his elbows,
the latches
of the arms
to his seat;
the spine
turning pages
a day
at a week
at a year
at a time.
They relapsed
from leather
to tweed,
and then so
did his seat.
In one dark-bound tome
spreading up the walls
he sought acute definition,
(an unambiguous home
in his first edition)
for the current
and developing
condition.
It stated:
A virus
is an infectious agent
which replicates within a host,
composed of RNA or DNA,
a protein coat,
an organism
at the edge of life.
But not, it seemed now,
at the edge of fashion;
not an agent
in exclusive ration.
An organism
with ample hosts,
in trousers, shirts,
blouses and coats,
a coarse-woollen contagion
of replicant ghosts.
Although no-one could don
this material as he could
they unwittingly would
as the symptoms upon
their attire began.
No fabric was immune:
polyester perished,
silk succumbed,
denim died, and
cotton went to meet
its Tailor.
He saw the pandemic
progress across campus
and county and country
from his leather-patch window;
the edge of life,
the tattered hem,
the volume’s fraying sheets.
