Dustin R. Smith

I Needed Some Extra Jesus *

when she came into the ER
sick all over herself,
praying under her breath,
in so much pain
my first reaction
was to grab a wet towel,
clean her face and hair,
wrap her in a fresh blanket,
and, when the nurse
started an IV line,
hold her hand.

* Her poem appears in an email my friend Dustin sent me yesterday, writing that her college EMS courses have been “compounded with clinical rotations, necessary community service hours, and shifts learning on an ambulance, yet I’ve never been so excited to learn.” Dustin and her husband John (completing his course work) embody what Walt Whitman praises in Section 33 of his poem Song of Myself:

I understand the large hearts of heroes,
the courage of present times and all times.

As of this morning, Sunday, October 25, 2020, “more than 8,642,700 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 224,800 have died, according to a New York Times database.”