by J.P. Celia

We thought it just another scare
Cooked up by newsmen on the air.

“Be careful, folks. You could be next,”
They told us daily, clearly vexed.

How often had they sung this song?
Provoked our fear, and then been wrong?

We shrugged our shoulders, went to bed,
Quite unpersuaded we’d be dead.

We saw the numbers, saw the graph.
We rolled our eyes. We had a laugh.

We met all warnings with a scoff,
And only stopped our scorn to cough.