the way that soap loves an airborne virus.
Wants nothing more than to whisk it all away. Half fragile
as water, half hydrophobic wildchild. Doing it daily
as thirst trap. Posing in the fat of fruit. in the lipid
of a milking cow. It’s unfair to say
it’s afraid of anything. Hunting virus by riding hydro.
Mobbing the scene in micelle. Trailing pond for a bond.
Shooting its shot near the nearest swarm of greasy tail. How
good it is at pulling every germ. Every dirty little frag.
Every bacterial bevvy.
Loving it all
to its silky death. to its silty bottom. to its graywater demise.
How it hungers the virus until neither function. Melting its thick
heart and ripping it all away.
Little soap bar playa. Little Dionysian pump of cupidity.
Oh, to desire virus
to death. To take it dizzy
and broken down through the falls.
Slow soaping the sick
from our living,
wet hands.
Copyright © 2025 by francine j. harris. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 26, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.