The Blood Artists

A virus is a bit of genetic

acid wrapped in protein.

It is neither alive nor dead.

It is small, smaller than bacteria,

many times smaller than any animal cell.

A virus has no energy of its own.

It cannot reproduce.

A virus without a living cell to plunder is helpless and inert.

It must steal life by slipping into a congenial cell

and tricking it into replicating viruses.

This is the act of infection.

A virus does not want to kill.

It does not even want to harm.

It wants to change.

It wants that part of it that is missing.

It wants to become.