The Virus

The very first words of the poem imply that the virus in question is HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which has been “dubbed undetectable” (Line 1) in both medical and popular parlance when its presence in the patient’s blood has been so successfully suppressed by medications that it cannot be detected by the available blood tests. HIV patients in whom the virus is undetectable cannot infect others through sexual activity or other normal physical contact, which is why the virus says, “I can’t kill / The people you touch” (Lines 1-2). In that state, the virus is also no longer capable of causing serious conditions that it could otherwise trigger, including those that jeopardize the patient’s eyesight, potentially causing blindness. Hence, the virus acknowledges, “I can’t / Blur your view” (Lines 2-3).

However, though its power has been diminished, the virus maintains its impulse to damage and destroy. Since its victim enjoys “the pansies … planted / Outside the window” (Lines 4-5), the virus yearns to ruin that object of pleasure: “I want them dying, and I want / To do the killing” (Lines 7-8). The poem endows the virus with a malignant will.