How can a virus travel
+++and not love?

Or are we not now all infected
with shame
+++at our human nakedness?

We don’t want to know our own evil
so profess good, pretending
+++to smile without hurting.

So painful.

The Tiananmen butterfly warns us:
cyclones we’ve stirred with our grasping
+++While the world shudders.

We are sick unto death.

Yet the turning sword says to return,
simply cast off our clothing and stand,
+++embracing the wounds of our neighbors.

Nothing
+++really dies in the garden.

Image: “Double bow,” by Mike Shell on flickr [Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) ].