COVID

2020, year of loss. Missing...

Hugs and kisses, family dinners,

baseball, football, the Olympics.

Quick runs to the grocery, or the mall.

Travel, handshakes, museums, libraries.

Theater, meetings, impromptu dinner parties.

Wine and cheese and cocktail gatherings, 

headlines that don't include 'virus',

doctor's appointments in a room with a doctor.

School and sports and movies in a theater,

meals in a restaurant, drinks at a bar.

walking hand-in-hand, or arm-in-arm,

sharing an ice cream cone, or a bag of popcorn.

Church and singing and coffee hours,

Pats on your shoulder, pecks on the cheek.

Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day.

Graduations, weddings, reunions,

vacations, the beach.

Crowds.

And, in exchange, we get

masks and gloves and wipes and sprays,

less traffic, more walking, and delays

(while surfaces are sanitized).

We know the names and faces

of public health officials, and have forgotten

those of masked neighbors...we know

the daily statistics of infections, deaths,

and positivity rates.

Have seen nasal swabs and ventilators

and the insides of many hospitals that

we didn't want to see,

along with refrigerated truck mortuaries.

People reacting violently to

humane requests to wear a mask.

Editorials and op-eds and 

unfounded speculation on hoaxes

and vaccines and conspiracies

and politicization and finger-pointing,

when all we want

is straight talk, informed talk,

science, if you will,

that knows whereof it speaks:

the what, the why, the how, and

(most important)

when it all will end.