As virus swans through air, we consider
the long-dismissed miasma effect.
Basement-suited sweethearts, we trade
packeted masks, slick aloe
over nicked mastoid bones. Upstairs
a thump, the quarrel of strangers
who live overhead, scream walls
off their throats. Bad air, we say
and busy our hands scrubbing
black mold from corners.

Something cooks
in the neighbour’s kitchen
but it’s not food.
Guests come and go
under a haze of bleach,
ammonia, and night. They tromp
around, wallets open, bolt
cutters drawn. All day long
the hallways stink of tiger piss, smoke
oozes out a cracked window.

A cat lays on the neglected triplex lawn
sniffs chemical air, wonders what nature
of beast permeates the street.
His ears turn like satellites
for any vulnerable thing
to sink teeth into: the pap
of bee against quackgrass, birds
hopping soft at the roots of the cedar.

Sparrow doesn’t know
a predator hides nearby.
If she took to sour sky
she might have seen a cat,
a fight, bottles spilling rubber
tube intestines, bikes tipped
stripped of paint, ready for resale.

We find the bird legs stiff and skyward
blood wet on her crest, a memento
of being too slow to go. In crisis
all things are foremost portents
and only the things they are second.