Covid Spring   We never saw it coming, most of us, because we never thought about the plague or pestilence — antique notions we must have forgotten. Now the conqueror’s flag flies everywhere, unseen, and we obey or we disobey, and we calculate: Who has it? Who is a vector? What have they touched, breathed on? Everything we thought we knew was wrong, delusional, a dream of climbing an endless staircase made of sand. Light’s infected with darkness and mistrust, time has turned viscous, like glue. The starless nights guide us nowhere. We tell ourselves: Spring came so late this year, but it came all the same.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont May 2020