The revaluation of the parasite operated in Chap. 2 reveals its inventive and creative dimension as a generator of significance. I pursue this revaluation in this chapter by moving from the parasite to the virus metaphor. This shift might seem minimal if we understand viruses as kinds of parasites, as Michel Serres suggests: ‘In the common vicinity of what is called inert and what is called living, a virus reproduces in a parasitic fashion’ (Serres 2007, 188). However, there are some differences in the connotations of these words, and I will highlight two. First, a virus needs to operate from within its host and needs healthy cells to contaminate and replicate. A virus therefore has an internal action, whereas the parasite can also work externally. Not all parasites have an external action, but the very mode of replication of viruses points towards a more internal action (pervasive rather than invasive). Considering poetic utterances as parasitical suggests that they lie somewhere outside of language and feed onto it while considering them as viral shows that they operate from within. Relocating the poetic within Austin’s framework through perlocution grants it the power to virally affect the performative.