Linda Suzu Kawano
What Do You Believe?
Do you believe that which you cannot see
is likely to encounter you or me?
Do you dare share hand or hug?
Are you defiant or downright smug?
Do you agree with those who said
Virus is Asian,
Not Caucasian?
Does the idea make you choke?
Or is the label merely a joke?
A stand up comedy?
A pathogenic parody?
Are you heeding the advice of many
or just ready to jetty
all warnings and go about your daily routine
out in the open where you can be seen
Cavorting,
While retorting…
Hand sanitizing,
social distancing,
mucosal misting?
If your habits are the latter,
it can, for some folks really matter.
For you may be assisting in the spread
of the dead.
Linda Suzu Kawano is primarily a business and science writer. Her work appears in the volume Gender, Science and Innovation: New Perspectives (Edgar Elgar Publishing, 2020), edited by Helen Lawton Smith, Colette Henry, Henry Etzkowitz, Alexandra Poulovassilis. She self-describes as “an Asian American woman, a Baby Boomer with a doctorate in biology who resides in Chicago.”
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