Plague Door

Again a poem prompted by a photograph of an old door in Italy boarded up and covered with Grafitti. I thought about the crosses that were once drawn on the doors of plague victims and the poem evolved from there. The plague was initialled believed to be a sign of god's wrath. Lisa Tivey has a studio, The Open Window Gallery, in Rathmines, Co Dublin and another, Holly Tree Studio, Bantry, West Cork.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

Plague Door

The plague is not fussy, just hungry.

And this door never did recover from its daubed

red cross, its pile of bodies, black ulcerated, buboes

the size of an apple. Punishment meted out

by heavenly bodies, atonement for our

inequities, the wrath of God against which

no appeal prevailed.

Centuries later it comes back.

No paint to daub on paint peeled door.

Just nails and planks of wood and

ghosts quarantined now, as they were

then, when no-one would trade or breathe

contaminated air or share their

misfortune. And then for bedevilment

some flippant boy, some modern day town watchman,

a pot of errant paint in hand, daubs willy-nilly,

stigma, that proclaims you dead.

Inspired by Lisa Tivey’s Calabrian Steps