OCD Relapse

by Marc Darnell

 Wash your hands again-- Covid might
 survive these seven times you’ve scrubbed your nails
 in fifteen minutes.  You haven’t done it right,
 so wait till night, see how your body feels--
  
 if you show fever, take your temp five times,
 no-- six, perhaps thermometers are wrong.
 Scour the sink for smart, demonic germs
 that want to crawl into your bed and sting
  
 you till you’ve chilled but all the sheets are wet,
 and god, you have to call in sick to work--
 you had such good attendance, now you’ll sit
 at home two weeks, your memory will blur
  
 of what you haven’t cleaned, you crave to kill
 that thing that slipped into your veins and rills. 

Biography
Marc Darnell is a custodian and online tutor in Omaha NE, and has also been a phlebotomist, hotel supervisor, busboy, editorial assistant, farmhand, devout recluse, and incurable brooder.  He received his MFA from the University of Iowa, and has published poems in The Lyric, Rue Scribe, Verse, Skidrow Penthouse, Shot Glass Journal, The HyperTexts, Candelabrum, The Road Not Taken, Aries, Ship of Fools, Open Minds Quarterly, The Fib Review, Verse-Virtual, Blue Unicorn, Ragazine, The Literary Nest, The Pangolin Review, and elsewhere.