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Max Heinegg

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Religion in the COVID Wing

Waking, we see her glove the door, adjusting
her cloak, light capped in the shadows
of the morning ward, her bearing the proof
of faith I have mocked my entire life

bowing to us, frightened father & child
whose fever is breaking up. What fortune
she would leave the realm of light to find us here
pinned to the bed, startled from a blanketed chair.



Godsend

The baby in the COVID wing is crying
during quiet hours. Through the glass,
I see the source, just sitting up,
the parents on both sides attending.
Knowing to be here meant it was in danger,
as my child was, in our room, because a strain
of the virus forces the heart to stop its own
& all the insurance & human eyes on micro-
scopes, & every money-driven ingenuity
cannot guard, only monitor. The child’s cries
did not pierce, because I believed it would live.
Not for innocence, or virtue, or mercy, but
for youth, a divine shield she was given
that this day guarded her life.

Max Heinegg is an English teacher and singer-songwriter who lives in Medford, MA. His recent poems appear or are forthcoming in 32 Poems, The Cortland Review, Thrush, Nimrod, and Kestrel. His music can be found at
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