Filth

no, there is nothing new under
the sun: miasma, the unspeakable,
seals itself in the skin, pollution

marked by the clamour of fists, a
settler’s fear of unsettled peril, awash
in wretched yellow, dirty, carried far

to southern streets, the perfect fear
that casts them out: black skin,
faces masked, roiled, resigned, to

sleep. here: inhaling fetid breath, rough
hands dirty, until proven clean, empty
palms to an open sky, the coda: filthy,

filthy, filthy. and so it passes, untraced,
asymptomatic, always, until caught.