Published August 31, 2020
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Talia H. Swartz, MD, PhD
the air is tense and unsafe
shimmering veils obscure emotion
fears and hopes digitized misunderstood
warm tears stream for him
both vying for indefinite options
his lungs are weaker
she pleads for him
he cannot plead
he cannot breathe
but not seen through plexiglass walls
and faceshields and masks
is guilt
guilt that she was on the other side
that she brought this home
that he is here because of her
guilt cannot escape because it is protected
inside the confines of this room
for no one else to perceive
and in these walls of protection
that there is nothing to protect her
from this immutable guilt
10.20411/pai.v5i1.39
Assistant Professor Medicine, Infectious Diseases
Associate Director, Medical Scientist Training Program
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
1 Gustave L Levy Pl, Box 1090
New York, NY 10029
Talia H. Swartz, MD, PhD is Assistant Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is a physician scientist who studies inflammation in the context of HIV-1 and more recently SARS-CoV-2 infection. This poem was inspired by her experiences caring for COVID-19 patients on the wards at the peak of the pandemic in April 2020 in New York.
Copyright © 2020 Pathogens and Immunity
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.