Perilous

Perilous (pandemic)

John Corey

The mask of fear rests in me

A coward's mark of Cain

But mark me once and no more

I'll mark myself in time

If fear is not what you see

I beg you, look again

I'm the thing that you abhor

I am my only crime

Cotton masks with grins beneath

The fear has held them too

Crunching down within their jaws

The worlds they hold from us

On their doors a cotton wreath

And blood painted anew

Mistletoes and rabbits' paws

The night is perilous

John Corey is a structural engineer from Phoenix—about the farthest thing from a healthcare professional one could be. Growing up with science-­heavy curricula and attending school at ASU for engineering, Corey has spent much of their life far from publishers and literary magazines. Regardless of the seemingly disparate vocations of writing and engineering, poetry has appealed to Corey because of the piecemeal and puzzle­like nature of it.

Photo by Khawaja Saud Masud on Unsplash.