I happened to be in the middle of teaching a course on the history of the two world wars at Wayne State University in Detroit when the pandemic hit the United States and our campus had to shut down. As someone who has written poetry her entire life, I kept track of the unfolding events with a cycle of poems that are loosely based on the ten biblical plagues.
Note that the poems specifically address the US experience which was in many ways dramatically different from that of other places and countries around the world. I believe the reason for this is that Covid caught the US in a particularly fragile moment of its history, which is why I start my cycle not with when the pandemic hit us but with another recent crisis that foreshadowed the vulnerability of the American system, namely the Flint water crisis.
I want to thank the Humanities Center of Wayne State University for its generous support of this work. I am also indebted to Bil Gardiner and Leni Sinclair for generously sharing some of the photos they took during year one of the pandemic.
Prologue
Once there will be a time
When this will only be a story
About a land and her people,
And the many plagues they faced
Wish a gifted storyteller came
To bring the exhausted dead of then
Alive between the data and the lies.
I
The Bloody Waters of Flint
Yesteryear I swam through the bloody waters of Flint
That neglected stepchild of the industrialization in the North
Where Roger and his pal Michael used to roam
Progress is a mere myth there
Of pasts that sped away mightily in their automobiles
High on dreams of globalized futures on shores beyond the Vehicle City
In the depths of the city sewage ghost whispers of a kind, black savior
Who spoke of hope and Yes. We. Can.
But could not walk on water after all
(heck, he could not even drink it.)
II
Frogs in our Throats
Their walls could not stop the wayward wanderers
Millions of mighty migrants hopped right over
into their lungs where they stretched
into every little branch of the bronchial tree
until the twigs snapped from the inside
while its red roots slowly stopped beating
I heard a whisper in my throat
“Momma, I love you.”
“Tell my kids I love them.”
“I can’t breathe.”
In America, black lungs
burst from both sides now.
“It is still man’s last best hope on earth,” said the patriots.
“It is merely unfinished but unbroken,” said the other patriots.
It is what it is, said the plague.
III
Of Murder Hornets
Did you hear?
They spoke of murder
By hornets.
But I never even sent any.
They are funny ones on Earth.
Aren’t they?
IV
A Bat Went to the Market
A bat went to the market
To take a look at what the omnivores were up to
Nothing good, of course.
Ruminating along
In their white laboratory coats
The bat briskly bit and took off
Worried sick that they might infect her.
V
Corona Tigers
On came the tigers.
And they brought along a clown.
A rather real American Joe
even though
they confused him
with the animals he stole
for his show.
Called him, not them, exotic.
As if he was not vintage U.S.
As if he was not vintage us.
VI
The Boils of Californians
The land had caught a fever there
that made its skin sag yellowish.
The bursts burned bright and billowing.
The plastic surgeons shrugged and questioningly stared at Idaho,
wondering if the healing was worth the wait,
cursing that the scars took forever to green again.
VII
On Came the Hurricanes
Earth was hurt deeply
And to add insult to injury
They called her pain a hoax
Lately, though, that endless melody of nature had gotten louder again
Making her breathe a single sigh of rich relief
Then her friends, the birds, told her
That it was not meant for her
That her respite was a mere unintended consequence
of humanity’s latest war
Against a plague.
Who are you calling a plague, Earth thought
ever so slowly
turning away.
VIII
Locusts Going Viral
Can we now all agree that the
Babel of the twenty-first Century
Is our many tweets?
Our self-imposed limit
Of saying nothing
Beyond the letter limit
With limited speech
In unlimited speed
An unedited feed
A ‘likes’ drunken greed
Is an amputated sentence
Not something to grieve?
IX
American Hearts of Darkness
And what they called God said:
I will send them a mother
Who leaves her family’s house
Just to have a cry in the car
When friends embrace
I will give them hugger’s guilt
I will send them a father
Who dies in chokes behind a wall
See through but so thick
his strongest son cannot breach it
X
Life and Death of the First Citizen
The city on a hill fell today.
Conquered by proud Q’s
And other random letters.
Who had become tired of standing by
Eager to give anonymous back its name
Do not ask who Q is.
Ask
Who
He
Is
Not.
Rebuild, you say?
Ever so beautifully in yellow
Of light, you speak?
Yes, I see light standing there on the stage
Surrounded by gods, guns, and glory.
Light does not warm me yet
To really shine
America needs the zenith to brighten
Instead, the edges further crowd the middle ground
Bending deeper and deeper towards its fold
The center holds out ever so narrowly at the edge.
Epilogue
Could you in the front row please shut up about what history will do?
I tell you a secret then.
History does not rhyme
But takes us for a fool
History is no good God
Not even a gutsy idol
History burns through the rule of law like tinder
Ask them
The people who lived here first
– could they
would they tell you!
No, history will not judge us.
But I, I may.
And my pen will be terrifying.
Empty Target, 2020 (by Bil Gardiner)