LA GRIPPE
I imagine a stout, aging French lady reclining on a chaise with velvet upholstery, still looking en vogue in pink silk and lace and eyes lined to look like Bette Davis. Just a touch of la grippe, she says, fluttering the back of her hand to her forehead. How appropriate the word—grippe—the insidious viral fingers wrapping themselves around us, clenching until we ache. Gasp. Wheeze. Drink willow bark tea and turn our faces to the sky, hoping to breathe in any piece of it. Maybe now we call it aspirin. Or maybe now we take azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine and rest our heads on a gurney because the hospital beds are all taken. Either way, we can hear la vie en rose in our heads and imagine ourselves in Paris.
Issa M. Lewis 