In commemoration of my first known bout with Covid, on Sept. 14, 2024 (yes, I had quite a run!), here’s a poem I wrote pre-pandemic. It’s a historical smallpox poem based on an 1892 NY Times article about one Mr. Green. He was a prosperous fellow whose family, a wife and six children, succumbed to smallpox. Instead of wasting away in the pesthouse, Green swam across the river to his empty home. Here’s a link to the article.

(Pittston, Pennylvania 1892)

The sobbing
river, his grief,
common reeds, cattails, bonesets
whisper on the shore.

Desperate for home,
he jumps.
The sound of water.

He knew diving in
he couldn’t be loved.

The children disappeared
into their sickbeds.
Home, empty.

Still, he quit
the pesthouse.

He knew diving in
there was nothing across
the muddy Susquehanna.

Footsteps sink in the marsh
between tufts of horsetail rushes.

Climbing out, soaking.
It was not a fever
dream. The empty house confirms.

Family gone to grave.
Follow them. Follow  
But, but
for the need to grieve.

They think he
is dead in the pesthouse.
He is in
his empty home.

The photographs, the children’s clothes,
the beds, the toys, were
burned alive.