This Is Not about Us (It’s Just about Desire and the Plague)

More than a crisis, a phenomenon is how

scholars describe the bubonic

craze that made the Dutch

desire, more than

anything, a tulip

There were flower auctions and

commissioned portraits of   bulbs,

certain bulbs worth thousands of seventeenth-century coins

Bulb-like symptoms

developed in certain parts of   the body,

round nodules in the armpits or groin, for example, but also

intolerance to light, pain in the back and limbs,

sleeplessness, apathy, and delirium—

But in this version of   modernity,

in the floral department

of Trader Joe’s, I keep

my hands, my saliva, and

this bit of trivia to myself

Because we are running out of money

and because your mind needs a speedometer,

I want to say, You look pretty even in a mask

To purchase means to buy, or

to get a grip on—to want to consume—

Tulpenmanie. They say it was like a fever inside

an era of fever—

I want to tell you, but you’ve gone

worrying down some other aisle. And I am pushing

a shopping cart of   baby’s breath, the color of   plums