Expedition to the Plague Planet

No need to tell me that
I’m walking a plague’s unholy ground.
Too many twisted skeletons
with doom-struck faces
litter what once was pasture land.
Bodies float in the rivers
or line the streets
or hang from the trees.
That insidious virus hasn’t gone anywhere.
It still gnaws away
from the inside out.

All is silent but for the wind.
Nothing lives in the cities.
The farms are unworked.
High-rises and houses
have long outlived
the ones who built them.
All is silent but for the wind.

A sun provides life’s ingredients
but there’s no one left to take advantage.
Free of its alpha inhabitants,
the landscape goes its own way.

One solitary shack tells the story.
The dwelling’s foundations are solid,
its walls and roof expertly
wedged together.
Inside, we find a comfortable bed
and a well-stocked kitchen.
The seated remnants of a body
are slumped over a table.

With his two heads, three arms, four legs,
he could have told us so much.
I’m curious to know
how many of each he started with.