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John
Is 65 and a tall man
Dressed in a white suit and tie
With nice tennis shoes fuzzy socks
And some hair plopped on top.

Mary is 24 with blond hair and a smile so fun
Her sweetness tosses like sugar
Across the party of every room
She enters.

Her contagious smile has been erased
Behind her virus mask
Yet still gloriously escapes
Through her crinkled blue eyes
Her heaving cheek bones and that guttural ha! laugh.

Down the aisle they walk together
Between all the seated people
Mary steadying John by the arm
Whispering to his agitated face
With the palm of her hand and several Kleenexes

His heavy weight leaning
Into her strength and beauty.

John
Lives comfortably in a nice house
Enjoys retiree health care and a full pension
For his immediate family
Until he dies.

Mary
Has no health care
No 401(k) vacation or sick time
Makes $12.50/hour
And lives in a little ground floor apartment
In the middle of the city with a cat.

She can’t help herself
Happy anyway.

He staggers
She swaggers.

The two reach John’s mother
Up front
Cloaked in a beautiful blue dress
Surrounded by candles and photographs
Her hands clenched around a bouquet of flowers

A half smile
No longer blocked by a mask
As she lies asleep in her coffin.

Mary holds John up by the waist
His mask hinged to his jaw and ears
While he makes muffled squeals
And pokes his mother’s body.

Mary turns him around
Draws him back to his pew
Everyone sitting six feet apart
Crying
More for John than his mother.

Mary takes it in stride
For she cleans his behind after accidents
Lifts him up from sidewalks after he’s fallen
Feeds him food from a spoon
Wipes his chin

And when he screams at the top of his lungs
She tries to remind him
The old comfort of his forgotten name
John John
But that never works

Yet when she says it’s Mary Mary
He sometimes recognizes something
Far away
And can quiet for her

There is no Medicare reimbursement for this

She
Alone as an angel
Drives home for the night
In a beat up car

Her magic performed
Poorer
But richer
Than what any CEO could ever imagine in space.
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