Christopher Bursk: Nor are we fit to force our way across
—Aeneid, Book V, John Dryden, tr.
Because the first symptoms are a dry cough
I started coughing
three days ago
and because sore throat proves one of the early warning signs
I’ve kept swallowing
to see if my throat hurts
till now it does
and because chills often accompany the virus
I find myself shivering
so I run baths hot enough
to burn away the fever
though every time I take my temperature
it reads 97.7
so I suspect the thermometer
of lying and make everywhere I am a bed
and the cats lie down next to me
as if they know
I am dying though I show no signs of expiring
yet—except this
24-hour exhaustion, every cell in me tired
of what it knows
will be asked of it, every muscle clenching
for the onslaught. I keep closing my eyes
as I did as a child
when what I’d always feared would happen
happened and I knew,
seeing the ambulance drive away with my mother,
it was my fault
and so I kept taking naps
when I wasn’t even sleepy
and then waking up
suddenly—as if to catch time off-guard.
I still shut my eyes
any moment I can
because so many of those I love are already sick
and I don’t know why
I am not
and there’s nothing I can do
to change that
and very little I can do to help anyone
and when I was a child
I wanted with all my heart to be the one
to suffer, and, at the same time, I must confess
I wanted, with all my heart,
not to suffer.
From With Aeneas in a Time of Plague by Christopher Bursk (Ragged Sky, 2021). Copyright Christopher Bursk.
Christopher Bursk (1943-2021) was an American poet, professor and activist. He was the author of nine poetry collections, including The First Inhabitants of Arcadia published by the University of Arkansas Press (2006), praised by The New York Times which said, “Bursk writes with verve and insight about child rearing, aging parents, sexuality, his literary heroes, the sexuality of his literary heroes.”
Alexandre Ubeleski: Aeneas and Anchises in Hades. (Polish, 17th century; Wikimedia Commons)
As I attempt and fail to get up the energy to take Tashi for a walk, I wonder how many of us feel this way. I tell my doc she can look for horses and I will look for zebras, but there have been tests and I do not have Covid or Lyme but there is no energy and I sleep for hours in the afternoon and have no trouble sleeping at night and is this all in my head?
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