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| Trucks being used as temporary morgues outside the New York City Chief Medical Examiner's office on May 12. Credit: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images via The New York Times |
“My Mother Died of the Coronavirus. It’s Time She Be Counted. Not having an accurate, honest, nationwide way to tally Covid-19 cases will only add to the current tragedy.”
—Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times, May 25, 2020
The uncounted
do not clutter
ER & ICU
spreadsheets—
they die at home
on faded sheets
damp pillows
stained
with fever sweat
and sacrifice
they never wanted
perhaps
to trouble us
with their numbers
though we shudder
over curves
elongated shapes
eloquent and flattened
we do not count
the dead
who stay at home.
Mike LaForge has worked at various times as a forklift operator, a door to door salesman, a martial arts instructor, and a teacher of English to students who use English as a second language. He currently lives near Vancouver, Canada, and has been writing poetry as a hobby for most of his life. His poetry has appeared previously on TheNewVerse.News.