Monday, January 18, 2021

To You in ICU with Covid19

One breath, two. I cannot see you, 

alone, prone,

sloughed soles, blood clots.

Knots in trees, these,

your exhalations, and irregular.

Ventilator hum 

becomes soughing

boughs, the branches of your fruit trees.

Your garden's lemons, crushed.

Sweet-sour runnels from them

tunnel, funnel, 

spill into, fill us.

Troughs inside our hearts 

trench, pool into you.

Fourteen

masked family members

vigil in the parking lot

outside your room.

I can't be there to pray with them

so I play hymns to Mary.

Listen! 

Oh, Mother of Stars!

How yellow bright our love for him!