Miasma

of course when the plague came those who could left the city

the wealthy burdened their horses with precious stones & dead flowers. —left their houses bolted & prayed for

while gone they burdened their children with stories of a homeland before it’d fallen into the teeth of rats

with the doctors gone anyone who wanted could treat the sick how they wanted

wear a bird mask dark cloak & a cane to prod the abrasions deviling across the sufferings’ backs

it’s an old story, one world ends & a man gets rich selling the copper wire in the walls

another flips a quarter & buys the flooded neighborhood