The Song of COVID-19

Piss on your reproaches.
You’re scared, upset, I get it.
But I exist only to hatch
My progeny inside your willing bodies.

It’s rich that you blame me
For your weakness.
My success makes you ill.
That’s my problem?

Still, I watch your high officials
Say I’m invincible.
That they can’t stop me.
Flattering, I’m sure.

But really, it would take so little to destroy me,
Send my remnant to oblivion;
Quiet, harmless,
tucked inside forest bats.

You won’t open your fists of gold.
No pity even for your own kind.
So I thrive.
I multiply.
I kill.

Roger Stoll lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has published articles, book reviews and political poetry in Black Agenda Report, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Internationalist 360, Jewschool, Marxism-Leninism Today, MintPress News, MRonline, New Verse News, Orinoco Tribune, Popular Resistance, Resumen Latinoamericano, San Francisco Examiner, and ZNet. Read other articles by Roger.