"Survival Mode", Ummi Tasfia
When mandatory home quarantine ends,
they will be released in hordes,
scars covered in make-up,
plump lips excused as a side effect
of eating too many quarantine snacks,
swollen eyes from days of Netflix on end.
They will speak in metaphors;
hoping some poet somewhere understands
too much and too many of what
is being covered up.
There will be the invisible who
never needed excuses since
some scars don't exist
if they don't need camouflaging.
The ICUs will still be full
but heaven will be fuller.
Too many had to die a martyr's death
when isolation was supposed to keep them safe -
"Stay at home. Save lives."