Shingles

Several years ago I had shingles. Not nice. Not fun.
I have written something about it, looking back at Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways poem. Mine is not a poem.
Here are 1-4.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Shingles

1.

If they’re full-blown, red, puffy, and weeping, it’s best not to.

2.

It’s a virus. (Isn’t everything?) The herpes virus, the same one that causes chicken pox, cold sores (herpes simplex), and genital herpes. Well, it isn’t just a virus that causes genital herpes, now, is it. So I will modify that explanation in this way: herpes is the virus present in all the above conditions.

3.

Shingles itself is called herpes zoster. Zoster coming from the Latin through Greek and meaning girdle-like, a belt or zone (Webster’s 1668). This definition should become clear in #4.

4.

If you still think we’re talking about a roof here, then I don’t know what to say about you as a reader.