16 pages • 32 minutes read
The Virus
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Symbols & Motifs
Virus
While the virus in the poem is recognizably HIV, its menace is comparable to that of other viruses that caused major public health crises, including COVID-19. Not only are they both deadly, but when suppressed through vaccination (COVID-19) or medication (HIV), they can still have long-term effects on their victims. There are also similarities in their inequitable social impact: disadvantaged groups of people (gay men, African Americans, poor individuals, etc.) are either exposed to the danger more easily or have less access to preventive measures and treatments. On a more symbolic level, the virus also stands for social injustice more generally—this meaning is subtly but indubitably introduced when the virus’s suppressed but potent presence is compared with “The way anger dwells in a man / Who studies the history of his nation” (Lines 12-13). While there is no reference to any specific event, any thoughtful American (and in different ways members of other nations) can provide examples: slavery, racial segregation, oppression of Native peoples, exploitation of the poor by the wealthy, many forms of sexism and misogyny, to name just a few glaring reasons to be angry. This is not to say that the history of this nation does not offer reasons to be happy and proud as well, but the good does not cancel out the bad. The context of the whole collection and Brown’s work in general makes it clear that racism is at the center of his mind and his lived experience. The virus here can represent any invisible, insidious external force that, like HIV, corrodes and haunts the soul and psyche of both the individual and the society it impacts.
Undetectable
For any HIV/AIDS patient, the test result of “undetectable” is wonderful news because it means either that the virus has not spread enough to jeopardize the patient’s health or that it has been successfully suppressed by medications. Either way, the patient can feel reassured that they are not in immediate danger, nor can they infect another person through sexual activity. Since the test measures the level of the virus in the patient’s blood, it is a reliable diagnostic tool, though it cannot detect the presence of the virus elsewhere in the body, such as lymph nodes or spinal fluid. In the poem, the word “undetectable” (Line 1) signals that the virus is too weak to harm the patient in an immediate physical manner. However, undetectable is not the same as eradicated. Its invisible presence remains a threat, albeit diminished. Its resurgence is always a possibility. Knowing that casts a shadow over the patient’s mental wellbeing, which is the purpose of the virus’s words in the poem. The ambiguity implied in the state of something harmful being undetectable—unobservable but still dangerous—applies to the metaphorical meaning of the virus, as well. Social change produced by anti-racist struggle for civil rights has suppressed blatant racism in American society just like medications suppress HIV in a patient’s body. Nevertheless, just because its worst effects (whether a fatal AIDS-related disease or lynching) occur less frequently, that does not mean that the systemic infection is not there; it is merely less obvious. Fighting systemic or institutionalized racism (racism embedded in social rules, customs, and biases) is challenging in part because it is more difficult to observe than overt racism, but it continues to poison the body social (our communal existence) with its enduring pernicious influence.
Flowers
In addressing its victim, the virus singles out their ability to see the flowers, specifically pansies, which they planted outside their window. These are not pre-purchased flowers but the result of loving labor of the person whom the virus attacks. They toiled to give life to something that previously did not exist, except in seed. Thus, flowers symbolize any creative and life-affirming work a human being might do, in contrast to the destructive and death-spreading effects of the virus. Flowers and gardens play an important role in the whole collection in which “The Virus” was published. For example, the title poem of the collection, “The Tradition” (see Further Resources), connects planting a garden with the effort to leave something behind, a proof of one’s existence, which has extra urgency for people whose lives are precarious, whether because of a deadly illness or deadly prejudice. “The Tradition” addresses more explicitly a theme to which “The Virus” merely alludes: the tradition of institutionalized racism, which contributes to unjustifiable deaths of black individuals, often at the hands of the police. The awareness of being vulnerable to victimization by a literal biological virus (HIV) or a metaphorical social virus (racism) easily leads to losing hope and joy in life. That is why the virus, after reminding the victim of its presence, concludes: “show me the color / Of your flowers now” (Lines 17-18). They do not appear as bright and beautiful once the virus has “vexed” (Line 16) the victim into remembering that their life will forever be marked by the struggle with this lethal enemy.
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By Jericho Brown
