Is your pulsating earache a thing-you-should-fear ache?
Could tumors be lodged in your brain?
Do you let this one slide or risk taking a ride
to a clinic? Your choice becomes plain:
you’ll stay in, drink some gin, picture numbers that spin,
place your bet…
and start playing pandemic roulette.
Now your cat’s acting grumpy, and smells like some lump he
coughed up on the living room floor—
should you grab him and go for a checkup, or no?
You decide that you’ll have to ignore
the new whir in his purr and the mats in his fur,
skip the vet,
and keep playing pandemic roulette.
Plus of course there’s your toddler, that balance-free waddler,
and clumsy, impetuous spouse:
when they topple and bleed, is a pro what they need?
Nah, you’ll stitch them up right in the house,
getting by, while they cry, with some tips from a guy
on the Net,
since you’re playing pandemic roulette.
It’s the closest to Vegas you’ll come in this plague, as
you gamble no torment or ill
(that you’d normally shout to a doctor about)
will deform or disable or kill
while you wait and you wait for that mythical date
when the threat
is no sweat
and you’ll get—
you hope yet!—
to quit playing pandemic roulette. ◊
MELISSA BALMAIN is the Editor of Light, a journal of light verse. Her collection Walking in on People is often mistaken by online shoppers for some kind of porn.
