Tasteless Defense
Who cares for the caregiver, and how? Poet Scott Hightower was the life companion of a beloved emergency medicine physician, Dr Jose L. Fernandez. Scott recalls “I took my role of supporting my physician-companion seriously. Being his ‘go-home-to’, I was his assistant in keeping nutrition going into him: physical and abstract." His poem “Tasteless Defense” explores the experience of love when the beloved is an ER doctor in the midst of a pandemic.
Tasteless Defense
by Scott Hightower
The Covid-19 virus is a body snatcher,
a vampiric predator, an exterminating
angel, a big gun. These days are a wild ride!
My young students, full of promise,
are green, nervous, and depending
on me for tutelary guidance.
And so, thanks to ZOOM,
I teach them poetics
as my partner shuffles off
to mask up and work one of his shifts
as an on-charge doctor in a red zone
hospital emergency room.
We––running our illusive clean defense
and without intending to cast shade––
tastelessly refer to his going to work
as going to “Covidland.” Ask me about
the joy of being alive and about what I
can imagine about a kiss just before dying.
