Pandemic memories, 3 years later

 

Mortuary Trucks in New York City in April 2020 by Archer West

I was happy to stay home during the pandemic—
a retired recluse, home was my comfort zone.
Besides, Zoom came out of nowhere, and soon
I was attending more meetings than ever before.
 
News was full of the bravery of medical
personnel who deployed ventilators and stayed
in hospitals with barely enough masks to block infection
spread by air or proximately or maybe touching. 
 
At first, visitors weren’t allowed, increasing the horror
of Covid-19, ventilator, isolation, and potential death.
I became obsessed with the number of dead bodies.
I became obsessed with the burial of the dead.
 
In New York City, morgues couldn’t keep up,
so the city rented refrigerator trucks to handle
the overflow, over 2000 dead in the first four months. 
Bodies were kept “on ice” until they could be buried.
 
Unidentified bodies were kept for variable lengths of time
before burial in mass graves on Hart Island, NYC’s potter’s
field.  Heart Island, I told myself, burial Is a kindness
to those waiting, to both the living and the dead.

For Mary's prompt "The Days We Stayed Apart" at What's Going On? 

See also, from 6 May 2020, "Burying the Dead"

 

My blog poems are rough drafts.

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© 2025 Susan L. Chast