Invisibility

It's hard to box with the invisible;
impossible to corner it, to batter it,
to chase it down and flatten it;
harder yet to believe in it,
to be afraid, to cower before it
when there's nothing to be seen
but headlines and numbers
and pictures from far away.

What's needed is a powerful swat of reality:
a shot of makeshift refrigerated-truck
morgues
in the streets of New York. We need
knockout punches that have us seeing stars:
exhausted doctors and weeping nurses
begging for supplies
who testify that reality sometimes hides
in everyday coughs that no-one hears,
or in symptoms wearing cloaks
of invisibility.