Retro Virus

My my, little virus, haven’t you been busy,
Clogging up my sinuses, roughing up my throat –
You naughty little virus, you’ve left me low and dizzy,
All watered in my eyeball and shivered in my coat.
Oh my word, what hell you are !
You’re truly undesirous –
But I am multicellular,
And you are such a little virus…

I may be fevered hazily,
And sorely dripping nasally,
But I will beat you back – by deuce –
With peppermints and orange juice !
I may be rasping breathily,
But you won’t be the death of me;
It’s hardly some acute bronchitis,
Just your rhinopharyngitis.

Now there are tons of nasty bugs
Resistant to our latest drugs:
Herpes, hepatitis, rabies,
Take our lovers, take our babies.
You are nothing like those thugs,
You’re even less a pest than scabies.
Best you manage is to tire us –
Call yourself a proper virus ?

But best of all, you’ve given me the cure:
You’re down and dead and done, and that’s your lot.
Your brothers may infect me further, sure,
But you will not.  This was your only shot.
Your end is nigh, so take your bow,
For look, here come my t-cells now.

And next time you come plumbing,
Then you won’t catch me succumbing,
Cos I’ll spy you with my clear, unstreaming iris;
I’ll smell your protein codes
And I’ll taste your lipid nodes
And I’ll eat you up, you puny little virus.

And should your children come my way
Mutated in disguise,
They maybe lay me low, but hey,
It won’t be me who dies.

 

 

 

Microbiota

I’ve mites on my lashes,
And yeasts in my guts,
And hundreds of species
Of germs on my skin;
But not cos of rashes,
Or buboes or cuts,
Or dry parts or greasies,
Or illness within.

For ev’ry itch I curse,
There lurk my lurkers:
I know you’re there, my pretties
And I know I am your food.
My constant hitch-hikers:
My loafers and workers.
You are my troops, my cities,
You’re my nations and my brood.

Way down my intestines
Are hundreds of others,
Who outpace each cell
In my body by ten;
And while some infestings
Are life-giving brothers.
They yet could rebel
If they turn pathogen.

For ev’ry inch of me,
I am outnumbered;
And long before my birthing
Saw you terraform my loam.
I thrive unflinchingly,
Yet so encumbered.
Be gentle with this earthling
As you make yourselves at home.

 

 

Since I wrote this, the theory that bacterial cells outnumber our own by 10:1 has been called into question, and a figure of 4:1 is now proposed.  Alas, I have already rhymed with ‘ten’, so it has to stay.