I sneeze
Then sneeze again
Discreetly
No one on this train
Is fooled
Looking side-eye
Imagining
Tiny invaders
Indiscriminate
Swarming through
This closed-in space
So many
I sneeze again
Into my elbow
Like a good citizen
No one’s fooled
Holding back
A scratchy cough
I long for
honey, whiskey
And bed
for the dverse prompt of 11/26/19 on Plath, Hughes, and invasive things. Written in November 2019, but seemed to fit the set.
Xanku 
Yikes Xan — germs… yuk!
scoob me, I’b all duffed up. aCHOO!
They’re everywhere! They’re everywhere! If they were bigger and we could see them, we’d be constantly freaking out.
More microbes on your kitchen counter than people in the entire world! Who’s at the top of the food chain again?
One open sneeze can spray for ten feet; cold season is upon us. Plath would be proud.
I try not to think about it!
The number of people who haven’t heard of tissues and don’t know why the handkerchief was invented…
or the fact that you have them, but they’re in an interior pocket and you can’t get at them on the crowded train!
That is a reasonable scenario, but often on the train I’ve been seated opposite people who sneeze constantly and make no effort to even look for a handkerchief. It’s as though spreading cold germs is regarded as a civic duty.
This is so close to home for me, Xan, as I am currently laid up with a chest infection and vomiting virus after travelling by train to my daughter’s house and back. That’s the thing about germs – we can’t see them.
Trains are the worst. My son and DIL are a piano teachers and they pick up more crud from people’s piano keys, which it never occurs to anyone to wipe down. (They carry Purel around with them!)
Same thing with computer keyboards!
Is there a name for this 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2 presentation? Nicely done.
Probably lol. I started writing in tercets, but it wanted some of them to be four. (Sometimes you tell the poem what to do. Sometimes it tells you). But I didn’t want to give up on a restricted form, which seemed more in keeping with the prompt. So I came up with this (and it also seemed to fit the topic!) I’m so glad someone noticed!
Ouch… I would keep my distance to anyone sneezing
What is free verse if we can’t vary our stanza lengths? I think it makes it more interesting. I really like how you repeated’ No one’s fooled’ later in the poem and in a different position in the stanza. The whole poem is rather sneeze-like!
Right? The way it builds and then BOOM.
eeeep. i can relate! the swarming viruses. i saw them through your words.
Yay! that’s what I was going for!
Cool!