Quandary

by Elizabeth Haak

The quandary of COVID-19 galls me.
Where are the hotspots now?
From day to day, red dots on the map
shift from place to place so fast
even the experts can’t keep track.
“The data are always two or three weeks old,” said one
“And we have a hard time understanding
the reality is already different.”
When we hit milestone numbers–
(More than one million people have died)
My heart plummets on freefall down an abyss.
Will I ever come up to breathe air without a mask?
Will I ever stoop down to let a child whisper a secret in my ear?
When will I let go of my perplexity:
which anti-virus spray shall I use on what?
did I scrub my hands for 20 seconds?
or just squirt soap and rinse?
The sight of the Covid 19 image
With its diadem of spiky thorns sickens me.
The conundrum of the pandemic escapes the wise.
Only fools have all the answers.