Careless

Bleaching amidst the garbage,
a blue mask, now bone-grey.
Slipped from careless fingers
into the rot.
Forgotten in a chorus of coughs
and open mouths.
Discarded when it became inconvenient.
“Vax and relax.”
The virus lingered.
Quietly threading veins and arteries.
Organs.
It whispers now
where there were once gasps.
Life expectancy drops
like a body into soil.
The earth will swallow the plastic slowly.
And us with it.