Johns Hopkins Covid 19 Map

I have become addicted to checking the daily numbers of new cases of covid 19.  I turn to the WHO, the CDC or my state’s CDC, but most often the Johns Hopkins map. The awareness came over me a few days ago that numbers cannot tell me anything about the people who are dying to give the world those figures. They are not just young or old, famous or unknown, rich or poor. They are people who had lives.
After my long dry spell with no writing, this poem has come.

Johns Hopkins Covid 19 Map

What was your name, number ninety-nine thousand, two hundred ten?

Was it Akmed or Mustafa?

Mike or Chunhua? Did your friends

call you Anna Maria or George?

Were you mother-blessed “Emma”

or street-baptized Blade?

Were you scared as you died in the hallway 

alone on a gurney? You lay invisible 

among too many to treat,

too many to save. 

Or on a ventilator did you still pass?

Anxious and drawn, angel faces

hovered in masks, bodies gowned. 

Did they check blood levels,

monitor blipping sounds?

Did you hear the beeping stop?

Did you slip away in your room

at home, your family afraid to touch,

to kiss, to hold your trembling hand?

Could you not catch the butterflies 

Of fleeing breath?

Were you unnamed?

Only a number on admittance, 

was the street your home?

Did you end up with tag on toe,

body bag, unknown, unmourned?

You, number ninety-nine thousand, two hundred ten, 

you’re lost to me here in tallies of countries and states.

You left behind toys or a car, 

unpaid bills. Stories, perhaps, of you in a war.

Most important, dear human, did you know

that you were loved?

Were you loved? Oh, please, 

say that you were you loved

before Corona took your name.