the old and infirm
now imprisoned
in facilities entrusted
with their care which
ban loved ones which
bar therapists and nurses
those routine comforts
vanished
along with their choice
to keep in already diminished
lives the meager
consolations they had
the elderly the demented
the disabled know death
is not the only
impoverishment
nor the worst and
what they lose now
will not be retrieved in the time
they have left the most vulnerable
among us victimized not by a virus
but their keepers and beneath
it all the unmistakable stink
of profit of politics of
corporate lawyers guarding
against litigation mouthing
how they are protecting
the most vulnerable
among us as they rot apart
from what little they had left
to love in this world
and this
is America in the age
of the new virus its
dark damp belly its
small myopic vision its
big fears its squirming objection
to uncertainty
this is how it protects
the most vulnerable
among us so tell me now
what is it that
sickens you most?
Jeff Faughender/Louisville Courier Journal
Meditatio Ephemera 
I truly hope to die before I ever set foot in a “home” for the elderly. If COVID should take me, I would be spared the lingering void of decline I dread. My heart goes out to all inside the contained facilities and those with loved ones so contained (so out of touch!). I can swallow such as a short-term measure, but it’s difficult to define “short”. Difficult to answer your closing question.
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Thanks, Jazz. I feel the same as you about end of life. Our response to this virus has been narrowly focused and short-sighted, creating all sorts of collateral damage that will outlive the direct harm it does. Deeply disheartening.
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