what palette colors
a five-day old mask

what tempo paces
beeping machines

what scale echoes
footsteps in crowded wards

what string instrument sounds
the timbre of exhaustion

what poem recalls
dreams of intubation

creative decisions
are best made in hindsight

but experience slips away
if unrecorded—

a journal is an art-form
forged while life is lived

as is song and prayer
pushed out from still-healthy lungs—

creations birthed in this horror
won’t be understood

for many years—
may they not be buried

(Published in POETRY in the TIME of CORONAVIRUS Volume 2)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0892HNGK1