Indefensible Disclosures

The Federal Center for Controlling Things
wishes to know where I contracted poetry,
so those infected, or at risk, can be advised.
They have a list of everything that sings,
and since my name appears on two or three
of their cross-referenced indices, I am apprised
that I have been identified as dangerous
to the well-being of my contacts, who must be disclosed
to the bureaucracy in charge of my disease.
They warn me my condition’s serious,
and often leads to suicide in those disposed
to introspection and the vague unease
that poets, on the whole, spread like a pestilence
among the uninfected and naive
who think a truth innocuous because it rhymes.
Contamination is a grave offense
and I am given to believe
that, though my malady is no crime,
I still am subject to grave penalties
if I withhold the names of those from whom I got,
or those to whom I gave, this metaphoric flu,
and since I’m not the hero that I ought to be,
and though I know it’s something you would never do,
I write this poem leading them you.

©WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS