Close Talking: A Poetry Podcast

Episode #148 If God Is A Virus - Seema Yasmin

12.11.2021 - By Cardboard Box Productions, Inc.Play

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Connor and Jack discuss a poem from Seema Yasmin's book "If God Is A Virus." They discuss Yasmin's status as a journalist, poet, and medical doctor; the way she weaves her many areas of expertise together in the poem; and what kind of art might one day represent this period of time.

Read more about Yasmin, here: https://pulitzercenter.org/people/seema-yasmin

Get a copy of "If God Is A Virus" here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1636-if-god-is-a-virus

Read more poems from the book, here: https://pulitzercenter.org/IfGodIsaVirus

If God Is a Virus

By: Seema Yasmin

She is vexed.

Absolutely done

with your shit.

God wants to know

why you didn't get a flu

shot; why her minions

made your left lung collapse

white out on the X-ray,

rack up a six-figure ICU

bill when all they wanted

was a warm vacation

tropical waters, champagne

plasma to sip - not to bring

about death - not to turn

prunes in pleural fluid. No

body wants that. God thinks

anti-vaxxers have a death wish.

Wonders how they eat organic,

snort coke and laundry detergent

on weekends. Don't

they know yogi detox tea

is hepatotoxic? God knew

Charles Darwin. Clever

woman, she said. Who would

want your lot extinct?

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