Michele Leavitt
Virus Controversia
Disease is not of the body, but of the place.
--Seneca the Elder
Viral Sestina
"The genome of HCV is highly mutable. Because HCV is an RNA virus and lacks efficient proofreading ability as it replicates, virions infecting humans undergo evolution with time, giving rise to the notion that HCV persists as a collection of virus quasispecies. By constant mutation, HCV may be able to escape host immunologic detection and elimination."
--World Health Organization,"Global Alert and Response: Hepatitis C"
We
attach
ourcells
to
living
you.
You,
we
living
to
attach
ourselves.
Ourcells.
You
attack,
too.
We,
living,
living
ourcells,
we
to
you
attach,
attach
living
you
to
ourcells.
We,
we
attach
ourselves
to
living
you.
Attached. living
too, ourcells,
yourcells, we.
The Chorus Confesses Its Mistakes
Mistakes? We simply don't make any.
That's the beauty of a collective vision.
It has been ever so: we strengthen
by insisting on homogeny.
And we protect our own.
No one is harmed but the white goat
we tied to a tree beyond the moat,
the one we all get to stone.
Host C Bargains with the Gods
I hear Appease Me in the rush of air that fills
the void left by catastrophe, my fear of sequels
balanced by a brash belief I might prevent
a dreadful fate. The gods demand, and sometimes get,
the fatted calf, the son who's reached his prime. I play
the odds and offer up what's tainted, hoping half-
assed sacrifice will do: "Take my stash of dis-
used lusts," I say, "or here, this rooster nearly pecked
to death by hens, or someone else's goat, or here--
my brother's wife, who switches off between the crack-
pipe and the Valium, who drags her kids behind
her all the way to prison. Burn these things," I pray,
"and spare the blameless ones." The children suffer while
I warm my witch's hands before the blaze. My heart-
stone pulls me to my knees, but it's my mouth, that knows
full well the pleasure of its spites and blames,
that tastes the iron bit of my infected state,
that fills with spittle, thirsty for the flames.
The Chorus Strategizes
If gods express their wrath by visiting
their herds with plagues, then we are bound to take
precautions, ostracize the ones who bring
their souls to sickness through their sins and break
old rules against unbridled wanting--whores
and addicts, riff-raff, white trash, the lower class
with bone-knobs poking out through skin, and sores
and wretched, oozing scabs. Don't call us passé.
Common sense and science, evolution--
survival of the fittest--all say avoid
the sick; we aren't talking superstition
here. Not entirely. Mercies destroyed
other states. We're not such timid clods.
We make the rules; we are now the gods.
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| AUTHOR BIO |
 Michele Leavitt, 2010 winner of the William Allen Creative Nonfiction Prize from The Ohio State University, is a high school dropout, former trial attorney and hepatitis C survivor who now teaches writing at the University of Idaho. She has had poems and prose published in a wide variety of print and online journals, including The Humanist, Ragazine, The Lyric, and The Platte Valley Review. Her poetry chapbook, The Glass Transition, will be published by Finishing Line Press in June of 2010. Earlier work in Mezzo Cammin: 2010.1, 2008.2, 2007.1 |
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| POETRY CONTRIBUTORS |
 Maryann Corbett
Nausheen Eusuf
Anna M. Evans
Rebecca Foust
Nicole Caruso Garcia
Karen Kelsay
Michele Leavitt
Laura Maffei
Susan McLean
Annabelle Moseley
Jennifer Reeser
Myrna Stone
Wendy Vardaman
Doris Watts
Marly Youmans
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| Holly Trostle Brigham: My paintings are rich with symbolism. I include flowers, butterflies, and other things from nature that communicate messages about the subject. These elements are interconnected with biographical references to tell a larger story about the sitter's life or place in history. | |
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