They stood away.
Made their own sick.
People hoping—
God, take away the illness.
Everyone grew

Weaker & weaker.
The strongest carried
Everyone.
Protest.
Daniel was two;
He was just a little boy.
His body took him away.*

*Erasure poem of an account by Selma Epp who was a child in a Jewish neighborhood 
in North Philadelphia during the 1918 influenza epidemic.