Quarantine

We finally found our reason to stay away.

To keep our distance.

 To avert and avoid.

To bypass, elude, give the slip,

 steer clear, ditch, step aside,

  shirk skip skirt, evade, duck, run

   for cover, lay low, dodge,

 shun

the weak and the frail, the sick and the

old, the meek, the poor, the dirty and

disgusting, the smelly homeless, the

hungry and thirsty, the leper, the one

who might have HIV (sound familiar?),

those who mourn—even the merciful.

Clever to suggest it’s for their own good.

The pretense of prevention. We’re not in

favor of transmission unless it’s smallpox

and good news, guns and Coors Light,

Marlboros and iPhones, Hollywood and

shopping malls, Coca-Cola and diabetes.

To even say it’s out of love—brilliant!

That our exclusivity (I mean isolation)

 hurts us more than it hurts you.

For should you be exposed to the places

 we congregate, you might would see

  from whom we segregate.

But most of all, truly genius

to say we are the contagious,

 to make ourselves

the ones from whom they should

 turn aside.

As if they wouldn’t notice

As if they haven’t known

 all along

How we are the ones infected.