This orient-born global threat

A cloud passing before the sun

Its silent shadow crossing our lands

Killing without a gun

The world awaits the final account

Holding its collective breath

Invisible, insidious, stealthy, amoral

This viral agent of death

There is no border it respects

No peoples beyond its reach

‘Self-isolate’ is the official advice

Don’t panic-buy they pathetically beseech

Come the time when those left re-emerge

Grateful to be disease free

Only to know it will happen again

A Malthusian catastrophe