Palm Sunday
No need for social distancing then. When
Christ came riding into Jerusalem
On a donkey, his bare feet nearly
Brushing the roadside rye, he was
At once vaccine and cure, his breath
Their ventilator. Death's dominion had come
Under his sway. All the throng could think
To do was to lay palm fronds down
Before him to calm the dust the way,
In 1918, they'd spray the unpaved roads
Of Middle Western towns from tanks on trucks
Driven by men whose faces were lost
Even to their children under the masks,
Worn not for the dust (which they were
Darkening as if with anointing water),
But for the air.