Covid 19

Holding the hands of care staffs, the pale faces
look for the angel's wings,
their noses rub raw, mask traces etch into their skin
sinking deeper and deeper in the whir of death,
it does whatever it wants
morphine gives the passage, blue and dead.

Despite overflowing hallways filled with
smell of alcohol, Lysol spray --
bodies are just shadows, night a wide brushstroke.
eyes half-open, lungs gasp for more
tiny red virus with crown shaped spikes is at work
showing perhaps how the world renews again.

Each left-over handshake curate distant stars
a breathing tube gives life's commas and semicolons
this is a completely different world,
oxygen dispensers are split among the patients,
conversation is about dying and death only,
a diary notes, a hurried text answers God's calls.

Minutes and hours punctuate time using a period,
tears are flowing down the cheek,
rush of oxygen in lungs has narrowly
made it to the daybreak
yet darkness strips away the veneer of life in silence
all those goodbyes now litter the streets and alleys.