day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and SEVENTY NINE

Waiting, Immunocompromised: Two Weeks before the Shutdown

The child’s little head rests on the coats on my lap

The stomach virus his brother kicked in three days

Now at almost a week and with worsening pain.

I see the white strap around his ear and across his cheek

I smooth his blondish hair with my hands

We are in one of the few two-seat chairs so that he can lie still

Waiting

There are still magazines on the tables.

I try to shrink us up away

From the other seats

From the other sick people

Make us small enough to hide

The TV is on the Hallmark Channel

More people come in:

I’m not wearin’ no mask HAW HAW HAW!

Cough-cough-cough

This happens two trump hats in a row

They come back from sign-in with masks.

I want to shout at them:

My son’s mask isn’t to keep you safe

It’s for him

To keep out what he is not able to fight

To keep him alive

I almost lost him once to a disease he was just unlucky enough to have

To a disease that has no cure

Whose treatment weakens as it heals

I will not lose him to your ignorance

I want to walk over to the one who refuses to pull the mask over his nose

And break his snout off

Then wash my hands for twenty minutes, hit the hand sanitizer,

and go back to my seat

to keep waiting.

--M.G. Gainer