Innocent Indignity

 

A citizen dies, unable

To ask for the air to breathe.

A statesman dies, despite

Tanks of air and casks of drugs.

She says she could have helped,

But what would people say

If they knew she was hoarding?

He said he helped

But couldn't help enough.

*

Unable to trust her friends

To not spread the disease

Through her, to her family.

Unable to trust his wife's father

To keep death away from the mother

Of his yet-to-be-born child.

Unable to trust herself

To keep her mother alive.

Unable to trust those we must,

With and without a voice,

We cry without tears.

Through empty days,

Through hungry nights,

Through the stench of

A fever we haven't tamed.

There are more of the dead

Still to be counted,

Still to be burned.

Dignity lost as their

Bodies lay unclaimed.

Dignity lost as their

Bodies floated down the river.

Dignity lost, just as were their bodies.

*

A child runs across the empty street,

A coughing man lies prone ahead.

She nears him with an unmasked smile,

He turns in surprise,

Hands raised in protest,

She helps him

She rubs his cold hands,

He tells her to run away.

The child returns home

To her frail grandpa,

To her proud parents,

To the end of her world.

⁂