The coronavirus pandemic has led our world down a dark road — and the United States in particular has made innumerable mistakes in tackling this problem. Thankfully, this year’s National Poetry Month put everything into perspective. Writers shared their coronavirus-inspired poetry to shed light on the struggles of everyday people around the country. Some end with tears, while others end with giggles. 

My Corona was written by Sally Morgan:

The coronavirus looks like a dog toy

or a child’s Koosh ball

with its primary color

and fanciful shape.

How can something so whimsical

be so insidious?

It hasn’t infected me, mind you,

but it has changed me —

morphed into an

odd, complex chimera.

I’ve grown antennae that detect

a six foot field around me.

I’ve developed a fly’s eyes

to see danger on surfaces.

Like a squirrel, I bury food

in nooks and crannies

for a distant time.

I don a carapace

to venture out —

which I shed like a

snakeskin

on return to my door.

I am Lady Macbeth at the sink.

The future keeps receding.

Certainty has collapsed.

Sometimes I am like

the bear,

lumbering out of hibernation —

but mostly, I am like

the ground hog,

waiting

still waiting

to see her

Shadow.

Here are a couple stanzas from A Viral Composition written by Renata Starbird:

It all seems so simple, yet wonderfully cunning

that we should be haunted by creatures so stunning.

Not a prokaryote nor is it eukaryotic,

some close to home, others much more exotic.

As we go ’round the globe in our planes, trains, and cars,

as we chop down the trees to make room for our yards,

as we drill deep into earth and pave roads in the mountains,

viral dark matters inch closer by thousands.

These poems elicit our emotions about the new world in which we live through a novel lens — and we should all strive to take a second glance and reevaluate. Looking for more? A quick look online will feed your appetite.