Afterwards: COVID’s ReSurgence

Delta, Omicron — What’s Next? A Poem

We are sick of being sick, tired

of being tired & yet the work of living

must be done even as some of us

are felled by a virus that doesn’t

see color, status, or gender, a virus

that doesn’t respect boundaries or borders,

a virus that migrates like the birds when

a whiff of winter’s chill makes their feathers

shiver & they take flight before the cold catches them,

this is COVID, this is its child, Delta, this is its grandchild,

Omicron, this is whatever child is about to be birthed

next in this pandemic that seems endless just as life

is endless & we must go on without the fallen — our family,

our friends, our colleagues & neighbors — we must go on

& live to see the pandemic’s eventual end