David Ades: Contagion

Insidious

it swept up in its camouflage of white noise

one strident proclaiming step at a time

its knee-jerk shoot-from-the-hip scatter-gun playing loose with facts

short-attention-span sprays provoking dismissal

though not without qualms.

Danger often lies like an unsprung trap

heedless of its quarry.

Not Marburg or Ebola or Hantavirus

not bird flu or Lassa virus or Junin virus

not Crimea-Congo fever virus or Machupo or Kyasanur Forest virus

not Dengue fever or Zika

but just as complex, just as unsubtle.

I have encountered it before:

when it was more constrained

skulking around in backwaters

before it ratcheted up its virulence.

It comes now

hydra-like

unstoppable

morphing by the moment

ebullient

caught up in its withering sweep

its rapid-fire fling of complaints and accusations

its hunger for attention

its frenzied neediness.

Smallness has such a big mouth

such an endless appetite

so much trouble digesting

and still it wants

it wants

it wants to eat us all.

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Copyright 2017 David Ades

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