For today’s prompt, write an isolation poem.

– and –

Let’s try an “If-Then” poem.

Typhoid Mary

Pretend we’re living
in a sci-fi horror novel
by King or Crichton
and there’s a plague
sweeping the world
and we must isolate
ourselves from our friends
and colleagues to keep
the most vulnerable safe.

Now imagine our neighbors
didn’t accept science
and, like Typhoid Mary,
refused to change.
They wouldn’t wash their hands,
not believing in germs.
They insisted the outbreaks
that followed were mere coincidence
since they had no symptoms.

If we were experiencing
such strange and frightening times,
distant tragedies in the news
drawing ever closer,
like a summer thunderstorm,
then in that book
or the inevitable movie,
would those deniers
be the good guys?

(Note the above poem, with minor edits, also works for the Climate Crisis.)

(Photo credit: Facebook/Alyson McClaran)