—Vaccination Day-20 Feb 2021

It was a needle
in the shoulder,

From the blue hand of
a camouflaged Guardsman,

In the concrete auto bay
of an abandoned Sears,

On the outskirts of
Concord, New Hampshire,

On a cold Saturday
in late February,
of twenty-twenty one,

Sitting in the
passenger seat of
a red pickup truck,
of a man from Long Island,

Hoping, in the end
to save her life and his,

From a virus,
that bloomed in
the tiny lungs 

of

a Chinese bat.

~~~

Daniel Thomas Moran, born in New York City in 1957, is the author of thirteen collections of poetry. In the Kingdom of Autumn, was published by Salmon Poetry in Ireland in 2020. In 2005, he was appointed Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, New York. He lives in New Hampshire.