America, The Patient

Katherine Hoerth

January 13, 2021

This January morning, may she rise

from her sick bed, clear her feeble chest

of phlegm that’s plagued her body far too long,

and take a wheezing breath all by herself.

May this nightmare finally meet its end.

We know she’ll wear the scars of this for years

on her alveolus, bronchi, pleura,

atrophied muscles, and a foggy brain.

We know she could have died of this disease

with her comorbidities: congenital

racism, lacerated politics,

the heavy weight of poverty, all wreaking

havoc on her immune response. Her lungs

were already shot from breathing in

years of exhaust. But she hangs on to life:

our mother of democracy, this tough

old broad of liberty. She’s coming back

from the brink of darkness, every vote

a leukocyte of hope. This isn’t over,

but today’s a better day than yesterday.

May we take this country’s hand in ours.

May we bring her to her feet again.

May we stagger with her towards our lodestar:

an age of healing for the flesh and soul.

Katherine Hoerth is the author of four poetry collections, including Goddess Wears Cowboy Boots, which won the Helen C. Smith Prize from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2015. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Lamar University and Editor-in-Chief of Lamar University Literary Press. Her next poetry collection, Borderland Mujeres, will be released by SFAU Press in 2021.