Community Memorial Quilt
Coronavirus Haikus
The Worker Writers School at PEN America
Community Memorial Quilt
Coronavirus Haikus
The Worker Writers School at PEN America
Lorraine Garnett
The world in labor
cervix dilates – water broke
swaddling stillbirths
Death ventilators
pneumonia discriminates
hearts, lungs – equal beats
Jailed with corona
thousand dollars bail money
paper towel wipe.
Rainbow is lurking
rattlesnakes hibernate – rejoice
solitary ends
Dear Agent Virus
my nana went to heaven
she forgot her hat
Ten days brick labor
lumbar – pothole stabbing pain
paycheck – bounce, bounce, twice
Enlist – forced open
frontline – returned to action
hair, nail, ball – riots
Cheaper – Beijing made
reagents in Mexico
cotton swabs, come home
Little black boys – found
Peter Pan in East New York
“Why can’t we stay kids?”
Double leaking lungs
overflowing pierce buckets
breathless heart heard jazz
Lash to the forehead
open processing meat plants
start cotton picking…
Awake, mothers cries
no food, water – only soda
waiting for money
Collecting our blood
dracula is drinking loose
what about vaccine?
Listening to dogs bark
sirens howling, fireflies
the dog walker died.
Death dance between smoke
moving like moon jellyfish
sting stopped the prancing
Gates open, wealth leads
10 million bucks – jackpot
mom, pop shop collapse
Stimulus action
social distance injustice
kicked, whipped, cuffed, then – poof…
Careers changing
Respiratory therapists – same
Nurses – Undertakers
Using iron pickaxe
missile digging mothers hearts
sons peeling black skin
Bodies in the street
dumped without bags, no ID
concrete burials
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