Laborer's Ode Iii - Angel

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.