Nobody Told Us

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except for all the
warners who
warned us
we throw up our
hands and say
nobody told us
that if we died this month
we’d die alone
the only face in
view covered by
a mask a shield and goggles
the last touch of a
gloved hand

tell me this isn’t a horror film
a sci-fi story an alien abduction
a hostile takeover an
enemy intrusion a rigged
election

tell me about stripped away
freedoms while nurses
strip down to their
bare skin in their garage
get hosed down by a loved
one from
six feet away
tell me if six feet under
is far enough down
but forgo the funeral

and oh!
remember mass graves?
bodies in piles
the stench of rotting human
flesh the stench of a pork processing
plant only palatable after over
seven hundred are infected in its path of
essential work

we are the frontline workers
but we’re out of elastic
world wide
we’ve ripped out our daughter’s
hair ties torn up their youth to make
masks
we’ve shaved our heads
in necessary defiance

Liberate my State
my economy is worth
two to three percent of
school children in school
child sized graves
where’s my check
what’s the cash date
LIBERATE VIRGINIA!
LIBERATE MICHIGAN!
LIBERATE MINNESOTA!
Annie get your gun
your ammo your saddle your
horse your righteous indignation
your freedom and your pride
but leave your dignity
because
we don’t get that
when we die alone
the only face in
view covered by
a mask a shield and goggles
the last touch of a
gloved hand

tell me this isn’t the black plague
the crusades the dark ages the
eye of the storm the dead of
night the rigged
election