Napo 19

Mask Making

              For Martha, Who Made Masks During the COVID-19 Pandemic

She said, “I will cover you in with the blood of Christ,”

As she handed me a mask she’d made from cloth.

Roses bloomed. And when I slipped it over

My blooming smile, I felt like I, too, was spring

Again, reborn and brave to face the world outside.

We couldn’t hug. I couldn’t touch 

the warmth of her hands

that made this mask, this gift,

And I imagined her, spilling out bits of fabric,

Choosing this one, the rosy one, to make

A set of masks for me, to cover me in red

The color of the paintbrushes blooming outside,

The hue of suffering and resurrection,

The shade of miracles.

My suegra has half a lung left.

Cancer ate the rest, and so she heaves

As she breathes, but damn, she breathes

And keeps on breathing everyday.

A walking milagro, she calls herself.

She sits at her sewing machine all afternoon,

Cussing and praying and singing and crying

For the world and for me who must go out into it.

The world is a terrible, dangerous place

of wildflowers and roses and thorns and death.

She stitches a bit of herself into each mask

She makes as she pricks her finger again,

and gets back to the magic work

That women like her have done for centuries:

Survival. You must believe the impossible,

a slip of fabric, the blood of Christ,

can keep the hordes of viruses at bay,

and she closes her eyes and I know,

in my heart, that all will be well.