Contagion By Deborah Jang

The Rising Phoenix Review

May 17

Contagion

Wracked and hacking.
Earth shudders between shoulder blades.
The needle trembles with each spasm.
Throat rasped raw.
Torso erupts in violent fits
with little or no warning.

While with each blast
homelands shatter.
Chests explode on impact.
Missiles wheeze the airways.
Louder, longer.
Incessant.
Vulgar.

Is it a productive cough, or dry?
What color is the sputum?
Are you coughing up blood?

Do you know where your children are?

A temporary truce barely settles
upon choked silence, in which
bodies lodge, wrenched
from their last gasped breaths,
lying fetal, ashen. Small.

Eyes for eye.
Teeth for tooth.
Limbs gone missing.
Families lose their vital parts.
Survivors negotiate the rubble ––
numbly stumble shell-shocked
through a bloodshot pall.

Do you have trouble swallowing?
Do you have a fever? Chills?
Have you experienced headaches?
Body aches?
How is your appetite?

Hunger haunts the hunted.
Cruel weapon of cruel war.
Hospitals burn in delirium,
hostages of the human contagion.
Gurneys line the hallways
like sitting ducks.

Borders besieged.
Tomorrows, hypothetical.
Collateral damaged beyond relief.
Hotbed of hell and unholy wars.
Heaven will have to wait.

Do you feel winded while at rest?
Or climbing up a hill?
Let's listen. Breathe normal.
Now inhale deeply.
Now. Let. It. Out. Real. Slow.

Again.

Click here to listen to an audio clip.

By Deborah Jang

Biography:

Deborah Jang is a visual artist and poet based in Denver, Colorado, and Oceanside, California. A quiet observer, Deborah reflects on and responds to that which has occupied and encompassed her considerable lifetime. She captures "all the feels" surrounding family history, social reckonings, the process of aging, pandemic angst, celebrations of nature, experiences as an Asian American woman, personal contemplations and dramas, and grandmotherly enchantment. Her debut book, Float True, was published in March 2020 by Shanti Arts LLC. Her chapbook, Last Will and Best Guesses, was released by Finishing Line Press in September of 2022.