The Flu

Jesal Mehta, 2023

I have the flu
I have the flu

The turning of the weather has turned on me
Climate change plagues the planet, and me
Calamity! Catastrophe!
Oh, what an abundance of misery.

In my nose the glaciers melt,
Flash floods and mudslides run down the slopes,
My eyeballs feel like heat waves on the plains,
And brain filled with a dismal smog,
Like fields burning post-harvest,
sending missives to the truck fume plumes
And a headache at the top of my head,
As if the Arctic ice broke up under the sun,
Raising fatigue levels from head to toe
While the Nile of my throat runs dry,
A rough cough rolls over the riverbed of rocks
And though science is firm on what ails the planet,
In deducing my malaise, it fails me so
No influenza this, nor covid of yore,
Possibly viral, so days four of woe.
A better fate than the planet, sure.

Won’t do anything less, can’t do anything more.
Unsleeping, unwaking, needing a nap though.
Words flow as I watch misery grow,
Adrip’t, unswift, and this tale of sore.