In nineteen-eighteen
the Spanish influenza
infected everyone in the world,
killing twenty-two million people,
while, at the same time,
World War One wound down
with a measly body count
of eight million.

Nature wins twenty-two to eight.

Authors and poets
spent millions of words
on thousands of pages
describing, reporting
and illustrating the war,
but not on line
mentioned the influenza,
no one published text
until the nineteen-nineties.

Looking back,
I see people marching
in victory parades
wearing white gauze masks
over their noses
and mouths
in the a futile attempt
to protect themselves
from something
they did not have words
to describe.

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