First Blood

Yesterday Oregon registered its first death from COVID-19. An older man, at the VA Hospital, with long-term underlying medical conditions.

Maybe he was one of the men who often rides the number 8 bus with me. Older men, all of them; wheelchair users, some of them trailing oxygen tanks. I may never know.

It's not the disease I fear. It's the grief of losing someone whom I never knew, but who was a part of my life nonetheless. How many people we take for granted, until they're gone.

Maybe he was one of us
a rider on the number 8
a veteran, anonymous.
Maybe he was one of us--
now, just a milestone of loss,
a passenger forever late.
Maybe he was one of us
a rider on the number 8.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside