The Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus:
4 people in Massachusetts have died this summer,
and the area of high alert inches closer.
Each day we read, cuddle, ingest
and expel fluids, read poems, and cry.
I teach him about our indoor plants:
irisine, philodendron, echeveria, anthurium.
He likes to look out the window.

We stay inside the house.
Outside, cherry tomatoes split
their skins, slip to the ground,
and succumb to birds and earth.
All the bruschetta we did not eat this year.
I can’t wait until hard frost,
when mosquitos die in droves
and we lord over the streets like animals.

Animals everywhere:
elephants and lions on onesies.
Gorillas and dogs in board books.
My breasts engorged with milk.
My baby’s wordless sounds modulating
between bleats, grunts, and meows.
My mastitis moans at night.

It has been more than 40 weeks
since my baby has been the size
of a mosquito, but now mosquitos
are my biggest fear.
Small things look like them:
dust in sun.  Flies I death-clap.
The tick my husband slaughtered.
Lint between my baby’s toes.

I venture out.
It’s early October, and I want tomatoes.
The temperature drops to 38 tonight,
but it’s warm now.  I wear knee high socks
over my pant legs, a hoodie,
surgical gloves.  A hundred
bright cherry tomatoes, half of which
have already burst and fallen,
dapple the yard by the earth boxes.

I pluck fruit ravenously. Some splatter
upon contact.  I try to move faster
than unidentified flying objects.
Every hovering thing looks
like a mosquito, every skin brush
feels likes bites. I itch everywhere.
More fruit glitters on the vine,
but I sprint back to the house,
where my baby sobs.

I run past unidentified flying objects,
my extremities covered in DEET.
My first outing alone.
At the door, armed policemen glance at me.
I’d forgotten about the Tree of Life shooting.
I think about my baby without a mother.
My breasts fill with milk and harden.
I barely hear the Kol Nidre prayers.
At the end of the service,
the room rings with names of the dead.

– Francine Rubin