Vaccination Hesitation

With the hubbub over Covid and now monkeypox it is easy to lose sight of viruses that are already part of our world until they hit home.

Vaccination Hesitation

What nasty rash skirted my eye?

The fates against falling ill had

favored me: no shingles shot marred

my schedule. But blotches now sullied

my visage and panicked my partner

to the clinic where we both tried to needle

the varicella virus from scoring again.

In the wake of my mistaken calculation,

I swear I heard an oddsmaker snicker,

and I swallowed days of misery.

Marilyn Aschoff Mellor