Mourning # 12
Remember the shopping list as today
we’re allowed to go out to a grocery
write it down, my English teacher
used to say, then at home put the
books back in alphabetical order and
the meds by date of expiration
the dread will still be there
there’s no palliative for the black dread
hanging with the weight of souls in
purgatory unable to translocate because
they died off-time – part “natural”
causes, part intentional incompetence
i.e. murder – one Poirot could never solve
there is no solving, even shopping is
no solution, it just must be done.
---- John Garvison, 95, had chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, a pre-existing condition
yet after a week in the hospital with COVID symptoms
he had improved enough to go back to his nursing
home, his son Paul drove him, the next time Paul
visited his father he had to wear a full hazmat suit
his father did not recognize him and died soon after
John had worked in social services with adopted
children in Santa Cruz, California.
The obituary Paul wrote for the local paper began:
“His death was due to neglect of the vulnerable
by the Trump Administration, which had consistently
downplayed the dangers of this terrible disease.”