I’ve held onto this poem for awhile, but I feel like I want to release it while this is all still going on. (I even had to change the title from 2020 to 2021). I can’t say to enjoy, because pandemic poetry isn’t enjoyable. But, it is truthful. When I read the story of this man who had been sent home from the hospital because they weren’t sure if he had covid, and they had no beds available in the covid ward, I was devastated. It was the first thing that really hit me. None of the numbers felt as clear as the idea of a man dying on his apartment steps because the hospital — which had free beds in other wards — refused admission.
nobody knows anyone in 2021
nobody knows anyone
who’s died until anyone does
and nobody becomes silenced
with grief and guilt
in death everybody becomes
numbers too large
for nobody to comprehend
nobody understands the touch
of anyone’s hand
(everybody hasn’t touched
in months)
nobody understands
two million bodies
who can’t breathe
or speak or live
there was a story
of a single man
a body with a name
the hospital wouldn’t admit
they sent him home
he died on his doorstep
leaning on his could-be-anybody daughter
he was human
but became one
of everybody
a hundred a day
a nothing number
in a denied pandemic
