I watch it all rapidly unfold—the vanishing of cheers at stadiums, pencils in school, suits at work—and stand mouth open wide at how every word that passes lips echoes
with the disease, the worries. Every word. A few welcome mats away I can still hear the neighbors gossiping about it like bats
squeaking in a dark cave. Their worries bounce off through the empty streets. And for those that don’t speak of it—the elderly couple five front yards down—
the silence speaks enough. Whispers of how long it’ll last, six weeks or six months, only cough up
how little we know. Medical soldiers march, hospital trenches sink, and ambulance tanks trample over
suburban streets, urban avenues, and rural plains, but I don’t know what flag the other side is boasting. It should feel as foreign as a blizzard in July, as
wearing someone else’s glasses. But as I watch it all go by, as I watch and feel an invisible tornado slice up countries at a time, I wonder if all this change is here to Stay.