Jeannine Hall Gailey

Cassandra Explains the Secrets of Survival, Plague Edition

Run. Get as far away from people as you can.
Think of everyone as a possible vector.
Don’t: go to prison, to work, to school. 

Be more paranoid about germs.
Get everything delivered by drone.
If you leave home, stray only outdoors. 

The wind is your ally and enemy; it picks
up everything, that gossip, and spreads it.
Trees are safe. Sanitizing robots 

are your friend. Avoid: airplanes, trains, ships.
If you start dreaming in December
that you cannot breathe, pay attention. 

That tingle in the tips of your fingers means:
don’t touch. I used to be beautiful and adored.
It did not protect me. No one ever listened. 

If you meet me some night in the street,
or the forest, I’ll walk fast the other way.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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Jeannine Hall Gailey is a writer with multiple sclerosis who served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She's the author of six books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, Field Guide to the End of the World (winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize and the SFPA's Elgin Award) and Flare, Corona from BOA Editions. Her work has appeared in journals like The American Poetry Review, JAMA, Salon and Poetry. Her web site is www.webbish6.com. Twitter and Instagram: @webbish6