The A1 Verse: The stain of love is upon the world

Every so often, a story published on the front page of the New York Times is so well written, meaningful, and appropriate to the Bulletin’s concerns that small snippets of it, properly chosen and arranged, produce something more than journalism, something that approaches … poetry. That blessed coincidence occurred December 6, 2021.

We suspect it’ll occur again.

How Omicron, Undetected, Stayed a Step Ahead

(from the original by Joseph Goldstein, Julie Bosman, Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura and Roni Caryn Rabin)

they wore feathered wings
to celebrate their love
with strangers at night
with friends flying home

tested positive for friends

too new, tearing across the world
not yet given a name
but already became
telltale