Tasteless Defense

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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.