The COVID Poem

The emotion the news during COVID brings out of me.

I’m afraid of those simplistic graphical up arrows. 

What used to be a clip art, a marker, directions

Is now a picturesque indicator meaning more shadows 

Of deaths, of ventilators, of people lost and fading

Every night as I sleep, the arrow climbs higher

I wake up and the fear is everywhere, every face

Except for those those that seem to conspire

Against the fragmented reality we now live in

Any step I take is marred by a sense of danger

For as my heart calls me to places other than my own

I know that my very existence could be a risk to a stranger

And the sense of responsibility leaves me polarized

There’s no satisfaction in the selfish or the sacrificial

As all of them incur a sense of personal denial

As we all sit around and wait for news from the pontifical

For some kind of news or hopes that stops the arrows.