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.
⁂
