What Rough Beast | Covid-19 Edition | 05 05 20 | Nicole Calivo

Nicole Calivo
Precautionary

The rickshaw driver
can’t claim unemployment when
India shuts down

No one in the streets—
all shops and food stalls closed—and
cops keep you at home

His family’s meal
once made from the day’s wages
now goes uneaten

And so they hunger
as the virus ravages
and threatens to near

Even then doctors
are ousted: treating the sick,
they might have it too

Wary India
Who’s left to drive the rickshaws
when fear has starved us

—Submitted on 03/27/2020

Nicole Calivo lives in Washington State and scribbles haiku.

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